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ENCLYTICA. 



BEING THE OUTLINES OF 



A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION 

ON 

THE PRINCIPLES 

OF 

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR 

AS DEDUCED IN 

AN ANALYSIS 



THE VERNACULAR TONGUE, 



" When the rude noise, and gestures, that ere while 
Imperfectly expressed the labouring thought, 
By social converse are improved to speech." 

" A ' Grammaire raisonne* ' is still a desideratum." 

Ingram's Inaugural Lecture on the Utility of Anglo- 
Saxon Literature. 




LONDON 

Printed by B. Howlett, 10, Frith Street, Soho. 
SOLD BY JOHN BOOTH, DUKE STREET, PORTLAND PLACE, 

AND 
GALE, CURTIS, AND FENNER, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

1814. 



^ 






ADVERTISEMENT 



It will be obvious, from a perusal of the 
first pages of this little work, that the course 
of grammatical education it suggests, is in- 
compatible with the forms of promiscuous in- 
struction employed in a numerous open school. 
There the toils of instruction are necessarily 
directed, rather to teach all a little, than td 
teach any well. It is therefore more especi- 
ally to those, on whom the amiable, but ar- 
duous task, of private and domestic tuition is 
imposed, that the following pages are respect- 
fully inscribed. 

A course of instruction on the vernacular 
tongue must be philosophical, or it is nuga- 
tory—A practical fluency in our native 
idiom, is one of the earliest gifts, which nature 
bestows on all her children, and we find that 



11 ADVERTISEMENT. 

the degree of precision and correctness of lan- 
guage, called for in the common offices of life, 
can be acquired by mere colloquial inter- 
course with persons of education and liberal 
associations. This fact is daily exemplified 
in the conversation and correspondence of 
many whose grammatical instruction in their 
native tongue was limited to the spelling 
book, or who having learned by rote some ill 
understood rules of English accidence, have 
left all recollection of them many years be- 
hind. 

Some parts of the subject the Author con- 
ceived he had succeeded in placing in a novel 
point of view ; and his wonder was excited, 
that the same paths had not been already 
traced by a hundred earlier and abler en- 
quirers. He ascribed this, however, to its 
true cause, a blind exclusive idolatry of Greek 
and Latin lore, and a disdainful ignorance of 
the true sources of our tongue. 



ADVERTISEMENT. Ill 

But having had occasion subsequently, to 
peruse the writings of a Stewart and a Tooke, 
he returned to his own essay with mingled 
emotion. A glow of self complacency at 
finding his ideas approach so near to those of 
" mighty masters," was accompanied by a 
reflection how little there is absolutely new 
under the sun. 

He fears therefore he may have adhered 
somewhat too closely to the rule which BufFon 
prescribed for himself: 

" Je n'ai jamais consulte d'auteurs, que je 
n'avais plus rien a dire de moi meme." 



PREFACE 



On the revival of literature in Europe, after 
the darkness of what are usually called the 
middle ages, it was natural, that philologists 
should direct their first researches towards 
those sources, from whence the knowledge of 
all that was new and valuable had flowed. 
We therefore find, that for many centuries, 
the Greek and Latin tongues engrossed the 
exclusive attention of grammarians, as the 
art and knowledge they unveiled, did that of 
philosophers ; and the same languages which 
had disclosed all the stores of antiquity, were 
made the sole vehicles for an interchange of 
new accumulations. 

But in process of time it was found neces- 
sary to commit to record, in the vernacular 

B 



11 PREFACE. 

tongue of each country, the discoveries and 
lucubrations of the existing era, for the ad- 
vantage of that mass of society, which, with 
an equal zeal for improvement, possessed nei- 
ther the leisure nor the wish to acquire a 
knowledge of languages so difficult of attain- 
ment, and so useless for the common purposes 
of life. 

The necessity then of consigning to the na- 
tive tongue of each land, the register of its 
own science or discoveries, and the mutua tion 
of those of others, induced philologists to 
take into consideration, the capabilities and 
imperfections of each, and the means of fixing 
or ameliorating them. But not having at- 
tempted to seek out a standard in the nature 
of language itself, or to deduce a system of 
universal grammar from the collation of many 
particular tongues, all they did was, to apply 
to their native modes of speech, the terms 
that designated those particular forms, under 



PREFACE. Ill 

which the same ideas were expressed in Latin 
or in Greek ; and to include under one deno- 
mination every mode of expression which 
served to render their meaning ; so that in 
place of a grammar of their own respective 
tongue, they only produced a translation of 
the Latin one. 

Even in their analysis of the Latin language 
itself, the earliest grammarians seem to have 
had no wish to simplify or facilitate, but ra- 
ther to multiply superfluous distinctions for 
an opposite purpose. Hence arose the sub- 
division of the conditional form of the verb 
into optative, potential, and subjunctive 
moods, as well as the introduction of what are 
called compound tenses into the passive voice. 

But the theory of grammar is easiest traced 
under the simple forms of language. It is not 
in such artificial tongues, where for purposes 
of refined expression and euphonic variety 



IV PREFACE. 



gratuitous transpositions are employed, and 
an arbitrary complexity introduced, which 
cannot in many instances be retraced to any 
other source than convention, and general 
acquiescence, that we are to look for those 
clues, that may guide towards the laws by 
which the developement of human intellect 
proceeds. Every complex form of language 
bears in itself the elements of its own destruc- 
tion. There is no doubt the earliest forms of 
speech were the simplest ; and that the Greek 
and Latin, as well as the more ancient Sans- 
crit, although the most complicated now 
known, only became so gradually. And it is 
notorious, with what rapidity the two former 
shook off their cumbrous honours, in degenera- 
ting and relapsing back into the simplicity of 
modern Greek, and modern Italian, from the 
moment when they ceased to be upheld by fas- 
tidious criticism, and an academic standard. 

On this account, amongst others, it is main- 



PREFACE. V 

tained, that the native tongue of each pupil 
is, generally, the one in which he can with the 
least effort, and most to the purpose, be in- 
structed in the first elements of grammatical 
philosophy ; in which he will, with the least 
expense of memorial exertion, acquire the 
readiest habits of analytical reasoning, and 
be prepared, when he enters on the more com- 
plicated analogies of classical construction, 
to obtain a speedier knowledge of them, from 
perceiving at once their use and foundation. 

It were well if the study of matricular. 
grammar were deferred to an age rather more 
advanced than is generally the case ; to that 
period of adolescence, when the scholar, in 
learning terms, may be expected to acquire 
ideas ; when his intellect shall have attained 
an expansion sufficient to enable him to fol- 
low the teacher in his analysis ; to set out by 
presupposing that grammar is most likely 
something more than a chaos of terms, which, 



vi PREFACE. 



far from defining the meaning of words and 
sentences, stand themselves in need of defi- 
nition ; and that it probably draws its origin 
from a clearer source than mere convention. 

In the mean while no time is lost. There is 
not any danger that, for want of grammar, an 
infant should fail to acquire a mechanical 
glibness in his mother's tongue. And if it be 
wished, that he should, while his organs are 
yet flexible, and his memory unburthened, 
become familiar at the same time with some 
other living language, it will be just as well 
picked up in a similar way; that is, by imita- 
tion and routine, the only means, after all, 
through which the practical fluency of a 
foreign language can at any period of life be 
adequately obtained. 

It is at this epoch, when the memory has 
been exercised, but not loaded, and a habit 
of inquiry and comparison has been encou- 



PREFACE. Vll 

raged, that a course of grammar may, it is 
submitted, be entered upon through the me- 
dium of the mother tongue, at once elemen- 
tary and universal, simple but comprehensive, 
and easy yet accurate ; the faint outlines of 
which are attempted to be sketched, or ra- 
ther hints for its prosecution suggested, in the 
following pages. 



PART I. 



OF THE GRADUAL FORMATION OF SPEECH; AND 
OF ENGLISH ACCIDENCE. 



Language arises out of society, and the need to 
communicate our wants and ideas to each other. 
Were there no community, there would be no 
language.* 

* Those simple sounds which are expressive of joy, pain, 
wonder, and other passions, and are sometimes classed under 
the denomination of interjections, form only an apparent ob- 
jection to this axiom, although they are frequently uttered in 
solitude, and neither express the wish, nor form the adequate 
means of communication. But the power of emitting these 
inarticulate exclamations, is common to the brute creation as 
well as man. With both they appear to be involuntary, and 
therefore do not come under the denomination of language, any 
more than the solitary howlings of a dog, or the screeching of 
a night owl. 

It is difficult to trace the analogy between sensations and 
this kind of oral expression of them. But that some such ana- 
logy exists, is evident from the example of many animals, which 
evince their different feelings by very distinguishable cries. In 
general the pleasurable or gratifying sensations are expressed by 
grave sounds, and those which bespeak pain, fear, or disturb- 
ance, by loud and acute ones. 

Yet as the first terms were doubtless the simplest ones, it is 
reasonable to suppose that many of the earliest names arose out 



il 



The first employ of articulated sounds was for 
(he purpose of giving names to recognized objects, 
by which to recall the idea of them to each 
other. 

Names, therefore, or, as they are uncouthly call- 
ed, Nouns,* were doubtless the first vocal defi- 
nitions, as they are the first terms an infant learns 
or invents, in order to distinguish, when present, 
and reclaim, when absent, the objects of his at- 
tachment. 

But as nature deals only in individuals, and 
the idea of difference or duality, precedes that of 
resemblance, or community of particular charac- 
ter, it is probable the first organized words were 
Proper Names, or nouns proper, f 

of those interjective expressions, which, being repeated and 
imitated on the renewal or participation of their cause, became 
by convention the name of the object which first provoked 
them. 

At all events, the concurrence of two or more individuals is 
indispensable for the confection of every name. 

* In every other language, the word which expresses this 
grammatical term is the synonime of name. Ex. 

Onoma (gr.) nomen (lat.) nome (ital.) nom (fr.) nenn-wort 
(germ.) woord (dutch,) &c. And it is not easy to divine why it 
should have been thought necessary to substitute this pedantic 
term, which is neither Latin nor English, in our grammars. 

t Proper names were at first given to each individual of a 



In proportion as the mind was led to remark 
the common properties which different objects 
partake, and the resemblances which thence arise, 
common names came into use. 

These were in their origin only individual or 
proper designations, but were afterwards applied 
generally to every object, which partook the most 
prominent character of them all. Thus the stately 
vegetable which afforded to naked savages a 
shelter from the storm, they called tree. Next 
they remarked that other objects resembled this 
one. And to all such which wore the common 
character of being lofty, green and shady, they 
applied the common epithet of tree. And as the 
element of plurality or number is only to be found 
in the complex idea of difference combined with 
similitude, it is probable this first effort at gene- 
ralization, was also the first essay of Arithmetic. 
" This green tuft we call tree. But that is a green 

family or society. As their numbers increased, it became diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to multiply distinct names in the same 
proportion. They had therefore recourse to the means of dis- 
tinguishing the descendants of each individual by the name of 
their respective ancestor. Hence some of the most ancient 
languages are those which contain the greatest number of pa- 
tronymic names, deduced from individual or proper ones. Ex. 
Williams. Ap-John. Mac-Donald. Fitz-Gerald. Pel-oides. Ben- 
Simon. Ehn-Hadi. 



tuft too. Then it is tree too. So there is tree 
and tree. But tree is upon the hill, and tree is 
down the valley, and tree is over our heads. 
Then there is one, two, three tree, and tree again 
- — many tree." 

For the same reason, the individuals Thomas, 
Charles, and John, were recognized and named, 
long before the abstract enumeration of one, two, 
three men, was attempted, or called for. 

Pronouns personal, are proper names. But 
their construction appears to have been one of 
the latest efforts of language, and the considera- 
tion of them may be deferred till we have examin- 
ed those parts of speech which arise out of the 
most urgent necessities of savage existence. 

After setting a name on things, motion and 
action would next fix the attention, and an at- 
tempt be made to assign to each energy that came 
under their notice a distinguishing appellation. 
In this attempt they would probably first essay to 
give a distinct name to those phenomena, whose 
action is, to savage minds, the only evidence of 
their existence ; their causing agency being mys- 
terious or unknown, they would naturally appear 
to involve in themselves both cause and effect, 
and to identify matter and movement in one. 



Such are the expressions— J* rains—It hails— It 
thunders. And this form of speech, to which we 
apply the term of substantive or impersonal verbs, 
seems to be the intermediate link or point of tran- 
sition from the name into the verb. 

After thus identifying action in a few instances, 
it required little effort to extend denominations 
to other agencies whose cause was visible, and 
to predicate them of those external objects by 
which they were evidently produced.* 

From the facility of distinguishing differences, 
and perceiving resemblances, in modes of being 

* In the application of syllables to express action, although 
the mutuation of languages leaves us very few data, whereon 
to found conjecture, there is little doubt, that the first sounds 
employed for this purpose (in other words, the first verbs), 
were imitative of those produced by the movements they 
enounced, or pantomimic of the effects of the energy they were 
to denominate. This remark applies, though in a more re- 
stricted manner, to the formation of the first common names, as* 
well as verbs, and seems to determine in what sense the earliest 
construction of language may be considered an imitative art, 
or an oral hieroglyphic. 

A little attention to the manner in which the vulgar of all 
languages essay the construction of new words, especially those 
indicative of movement or disorder, and to the first attempts 
of children to denominate the active objects which draw their 
earliest attention, will both exemplify and confirm this remark. 



and of action, a new set of ideas would arise, more 
abstract and general than any heretofore enter- 
tained, of properties common to things otherwise 
dissimilar, and of partial differences in individuals 
of the same general character, of proportion and 
degree ; in a word, of every accident which can 
modify the manner of being. These ideas ne- 
cessarily invoked a set of words of peculiar 
form, expressive themselves of qualities, but as- 
cribing those qualities to the names and verbs to 
which they are annexed, and to which they trans- 
fuse, as it were, the whole of their meaning.* 

This part of speech, including the divisions 
usually termed adjectives and adverbs, we desig- 
nate by the general term of modes. 

Finally, when through the multiplied combina- 
tions that arose out of a progressive mutuation of 
ideas, the simple enunciation of names, qualities, 
and actions, no longer sufficed to determine with 
clearness and brevity the sense and bearings of 

* The manner in which this abstraction of a concrete quality 
from one substantive, and its transfusion as it were into the mean- 
ing of another, grew out of the element of mere juxtaposition 
into a distinct and regularly inflected part of speech, will be 
further dilated on in the subsequent pages. It is sufficient in this 
place to remark its necessity and order in the gradual formation 
of language. 



each phrase, it became necessary to institute a 
class of words, whose function it is to connect 
the members of a sentence, and determine their 
action on each other. To this division of speech 
may be applied the term connectives. 

Though the constitution of that class of words 
is more artificial than any other, and one order of 
them, commonly, though improperly, named pre- 
positions, would seem at first consideration to be 
original and arbitrary sounds ; yet it is impossible 
that without the adoption of some such, language 
could have made any progress, beyond the ex- 
pression of the first wants, and rudest percep- 
tions, of savage life. They must therefore have 
been the production of that early era of society, 
in which the formation of articulated language 
and the progress of civilization were reciprocally 
cause and effect to each other. 



Having thus endeavoured briefly to deduce 
the progress of language in general, from the in- 
creasing wants and enlarged curiosity of society 
in its earliest stages, let us return to the elements 
of which it is found to be composed, and employ 
them in an analysis of the English language, con- 



8 



sidered, first, in itself, and, secondly, with a refer- 
ence to others. 

Thus all the parts of speech are, reducible to 
four, viz. 

Names Verbs Modes Connectives. 

It has been stated how soon the idea of aggre- 
gation or addition suggested the invention of nu- 
merals, words which might save the trouble of a 
tedious repetition of the same term.* 

But that substitution, admirable as it is,was still 
inadequate to the expression of simple plurality 
when unattended by specific enumeration. In 
most languages this has been done by a change 
of termination, and in English is generally effect- 
ed by adding (s) or (es) to the singular term. The 
French plurals are constructed with nearly the 
same simplicity. In many languages, the forma- 
tion of the plural is much more various, and de- 
pends chiefly on the termination, and gender of 
the original name. 

* The power of repetition to transmit the idea of a spe- 
cified numerical aggregation, is very limited. Past the number 
five, the ear would have the same need of an oral substitution 
as the eyes of a graphical one. 

The rude languages of the Indian ocean, and even the more 
lettered Malayan, have no other mode of expressing plurality 
than by reduplication. 



The English proper and common names are ab- 
solutely indeclinable. In other words they are 
not susceptible of any inflection except that 
expressive of plurality. All the cases or bearings 
of them towards each other, or towards the other 
members of the phrase, are expressed by certain 
abridged pronominals, # improperly confounded 

* It is pretended that the English language has a possessive 
or genitive case to its proper and common names, formed by ad- 
ding (s) to their termination. But when it is considered that a 
comma (,) is always made to intervene between the (s) and the 
name that precedes it, it will be evident they are two distinct 
words. For a comma is never used to separate two syllables of 
the same word. It is only employed to express the elision of 
one or more letters at the beginning or end of it. Thus ('tis) 
is used for (it is), (tho') for (though), (i'th*) for (in the). In like 
manner, man's is employed for man his, horse's for horse his, 
woman's for woman hers, house's for house its, &c. Secondly. 
The name pretended to be put in the possessive case, always pre- 
cedes the other, contrary to the natural order of the real geni- 
tive, and cannot, even by any transpositive license, be made to , 
follow it. We never say; " the book Joseph's/' or " the 
book his." The ('s) must on the contrary always intervene be- 
tween the two names whose relation to each other is to be indi- 
cated, and be placed in immediate juxtaposition with that one 
of which the pertainance to a former is asserted. 

Lindley Murray says, " When the thing to which another is 
said to belong, is expressed by a circumlocution, or by many 
terms, the sign of the possessive case is commonly added to the 
last term" This is saying, in other words, that while the pos- 
sessive relation is ascribed to one term, the possessive inflection 
is bestowed on another ! Thus, "the King of Spain's domi- 

C 



10 
under the denomination of a possessive case, or 

nions," docs not mean the dominions of Spain, but those of the 
King of Spain, or " the King (of Spain) AiV dominions." The 
term ('s) is the abridged pronominal (his), serving to express a 
possessive relation between its substantive and the one pre- 
cedently announced or designated. 

To the allegation, that the comma is used only in order to 
prevent confusion between the possessive case of the singular 
and the nominatives of the plurals, most of which are formed by 
(s), it is answered, that the comma is employed in the plural 
number also, even when its terminal is not (s) ; Ex. men, men's. 
And when it is so formed, the comma is employed alone, in order 
to prevent the sibilation that would ensue from a repeated (s), 
which in that case is wholly dropped. Ex. the two armies' 
(theirs) out posts. 

This peculiar construction of English phrase is susceptible 
of a yet farther simplication, in which the sign (,) is omitted, 
and the connecting word, whether relative or pronominal, is 
merely understood or implied by their juxtaposition, as in the 
following examples. 

Lion heart Play house Coal barge Cotton mill 

Sea vessel Vine yard Cart house City feast 

Cherry tree Wheel wright London bridge York minster 

This construction, which is common to the German, and 
likewise to the Greek languages, throws great light on the man- 
ner in which modes or adjectives (as they are called) were first 
generated, by combining names together, in order to abstract 
and transfer a property of one of them to the other. When 
it is considered that the earliest names were imitative, or de- 
scriptive of the most prominent qualities of their object, it is 
not difficult to conceive how by this means the expression of 
such qualities became gradually transferable. 



11 



else by the aid of certain connective words, 
usually called prepositions.* 

Gender is a term expressive of sex. Where no 
distinction of sex is implied, there can be no gen- 
der. Whatever is not either masculine or feminine, 
does not belong to a neuter gender, for none ex- 
ists ; all such names are without gender or unge- 
neric\ In this classification the English Ian- 

* In the Latin and Greek languages, these relations are ade- 
quately expressed by inflections Or changes of termination, 
called declensions. The German language possesses the same 
advantage. But in the Italian, French, English, and most mo- 
dern tongues, their relation can only be determined by the aid 
of distinct separate relatives. 

t Gender is not, like number and substantiality, an integrant 
or inherent property of the name, as is usually assumed ; al- 
though in substantives either denoting, or capable of including 
in their meaning, a distinctive indication of sex, such indication 
is often made by a change of terminal inflection, and this species 
of inflectibility is called gender. Example and analogy seem to 
render it probable that in the origin of language, this distinc- 
tion, like those of number, and case or relation, was first made 
by the application of the pronominal article, which for that 
purpose had received a sexual modification ; or, to speak more 
correctly, of distinct sexual articles ;* and that those indicative 
articles became in process of time, affixed to the name, in the 
form of a sexual inflexion. 

* For (eig, [xta, tv) .can no more be imagined to have been 
intentional inflections of one Greek radical, than (er, sie, es) 
ef one German one. 



12 



guage follows exactly the order of nature. Every 
name which has not sex, is designated by the 
ungeneric pronoun it, and by the modal its* 



* It is no contradiction to this rule to state certain excep- 
tions in the names of the astronomical bodies, because these 
distinctions have their origin in mythological personifications 
foreign to the genius of the language. The same remark ap- 
plies to various technical expressions. A ship, for example, is 
a female in the mouth of a tar ; but it may be doubted if she 
would remain such under the pen of a Johnson or a Gibbon. 

It will be well to acquaint the scholar, that in the course of 
his subsequent grammatical studies, he must expect to find much 
greater licentiousness in almost all other European languages, 
both ancient and modern ; which from various causes have 
adopted the capricious method of ascribing promiscuously to 
animated and inanimate things, the distinctions of gender, 
without any reference to, and not unfrequently in contradiction 
with the real indications of sex. This absurd arrangement has 
been obviously governed in most instances by mere termination. 
All such words as were successively introduced or adopted 
from stranger idioms, were immediately determined, with a total 
disregard of their sexual import, into that gender which com- 
prehended the same native inflections. 

Probably the exemption of our language, though avowedly a 
derivative one, from the same absurdity, is due to the simplicity 
of its construction, and, above all, to the absolute indeclinability 
of its modes, which renders such generic distinctions impracti- 
cable. 

In the mean time it is of no slight importance to do away the 
confusion that must ever arise from a false application of the 
practice of stranger idioms to the theory of our native tongue. 
Simplicity alone and a clear identification of rules with the die- 



13 



Such English names to which, though not 
themselves expressive of sexuality, sex may be 
ascribed, are in general susceptible of the dis- 
tinction by the addition of ( — ess) to the end of the 
word. 

Verbs express action or energy as names ex- 
press things. But from the rigour of this defini- 
tion must be excepted a peculiar class, distin- 
guished by the term auxiliary. The function of 
these is ministerial, and strongly analogous to that 
part of speech termed connective, from which 
they appear to differ chiefly in their susceptibility 
of inflection. But some of these auxiliaries have 
likewise an independent verbal import, in which 
case they are expressive of action, possession, 
power, determination or restraint. 

The most prominent of the auxiliary or minis- 
terial verbs is the declaratory, (to be) whose func- 
tion in oral reasoning seems purely libratory, and 
similiar to the (=) sign expressive of Algebraic 
equality ; inasmuch as the purpose of each is to 
declare that the two branches of a proposition are 
equal or identical.* 

tates of common sense, can render grammar, even in its first 
elements, the handmaid of philosophy. 

* The declaratory verb is the only one which, in those lan- 
guages, whose names are declinable, governs a nominative case, 



14 



The English verb has a substantive and adjec- 
tive form, two modes, two tenses, and three per- 
sonal inflexions in the singular number only. 

The substantive form, or, as it is commonly 
termed, infinitive mood, contains at the same time 
the essence of verbal meaning, and the literal 
root on which all inflections of the verb are to be 
grafted.* 

When it is used in an infinitive sense, the re- 
lative (to) is prefixed, in order to distinguish it 
from the name, for which it might else be fre- 
quently mistaken, and at the same time to confer 
on it the character of action or mobility.! 

because it does not express an action, but serves merely to 
assert a property of the name itself. Ex. 

God is good. 

Homo sum 

Friedrick ist der Koenig. 

* This character being common to the infinitive in all lan- 
guages, it ought to precede the moods of verbs, instead of 
being made to follow them, as is absurdly practised in almost 
all grammatical systems. 

t When this infinitive form is preceded only by an auxiliary, 
the relative (to) is omitted as unnecessary; because in that 
case the verb cannot possibly be mistaken for' a name, the aux- 
iliary not expressing any action itself, but merely indicating ad- 
jectively the direction and mode of action of the verb. 

The analogy between the functions of the auxiliary and o£ 



15 



It is only under this form that the verb may 
become either the subject or object of another 
verb.* 

The substantive form therefore participates the 
faculties of both name and verb, constituting the 
former into the root or thema, on which all the in- 
flections of the latter are to be modulated.^ 

the relative (or preposition) is so complete that the former may 
w^th equal correctness be termed a verbal preposition, and 
the latter a substantive auxiliary. The first expresses the re- 
lations of the verb just as the latter does those of the name ; 
and the applicability of the one or the other of them to a word, 
determines its character as verbal or nominal. 

* " To be, contents his natural desire." 

" Better, to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." 

t It was doubtless under this form only, that the verb was 
for a long time employed to express the action or effect of one 
subject on another. 

The savage mind is exclusively alive to the needs and feel- 
ings of the present hour. The future troubles him very little, 
the past still less ; since both through want of interest and of 
means of record, all that is once gone by is lost in oblivion. 
Yesterday and the last century are with him synonimous. The 
expressions which the present tense affords were therefore ade- 
quate to all his communications. And there was little chance 
that any mistake should arise from the want of personal inflec- 
tions ; the more especially as, until the invention of pronouns, all 
assertion was made in the third person, or rather was impersonal. 
So that the substantive form of the verb sufficed for a long time 
to the interchange of his fleeting ideas. 

In the earliest stage of human existence, the individual would 



16 



As the substantive form, or infinitive mood, 
Mas the first attempt to express the action of a 
substance ; so the adjective form, or participle, is 
an essay to express the substance of an action. 
It partakes the qualities of both verb and adjec- 
tive, as the former does of name and verb. 

The first adjective form, or, as it is commonly 

rarely have occasion to make an oral allusion to himself; and 
for his imperative allocution towards another, the expression of 
his wish or command might be sufficiently made by the sub- 
stantive form. 

But from the period when an extended mutuation of ideas re- 
quired a mention of the party speaking, and of the one addressed, 
as well as of absent objects, it became necessary to substitute 
for the names ascribed by others to the individuals present, 
simple indicative terms called pro-names ox-nouns. The forms 
of these throw much light on their origin : for in most known 
languages, they are short aspirated words, somewhat expressive 
of haste and impatience, and seem to have been at the first only 
interjective sounds, accompanying appropriate gestures of in- 
dication, in the place of which these sounds came gradually, by 
common assent, to be employed. 

When the expansion of the human intellect discovered other 
relations in things besides those of subject and object, and ima- 
gined other periods of existence and action beside the present 
hour; when, in a word, man began to remember, compare and 
predict, it became necessary to devise certain terms, expressive 
of relation, connection, direction and date, namely connectives 
and anxiliariesy whose functions are similar, as their invention 
seems to have been coeval. 



17 



called, the present participle, is in English deriv- 
ed from the substantive one ; as 

be be-ing will will-ing love lov-ing 

The second, usually named the past participle, 
is derived from the past tense of the regular verb, 
as, 

love lov-ed finish finish-ed.* 

The first participle (in-ing) partakes the most 
of a verbal nature, and performs the functions of 
a verb as well as an adjective ; and its meaning- 
being essentially active, it may be properly named 
the active or adverbial form. 

" Being immaterial, he can have no form." 
" And she, loving the children, was beloved by 
them." 

The other (in-ed, or-en) is more adjective or 
adnominal, as it cannot be put in action without 
the aid of an auxiliary; and its meaning (when 



* Participles are improperly called present and past ; for the 
past participle may express a present action ; as, he is loved ; and 
the present participle is often made to refer to a past event, as, 
I was fighting ; and both are susceptible of a future or prophe- 
tic signification ; as, J shall be feared : he will be speaking. 



18 



expressed by the declaratory verb) being essen- 
tially passive, it may be accurately called the 
passive or adnominal form. 

" I am loved." " I was loving." 

, All verbal action was at first expressed by em- 
ploying the substantive and adjective forms (or 
infinitive mood and participles) along with such 
auxiliary verbs as determine the mode of their 
operation. Thus : 

I do love 

I shall love 

I may love 

I was loving 

I have loved. 

And there is reason to believe that in the most 
ancient dialect of England, as in the purest mo- 
dern Celtic, the only inflected verbs were the 
auxiliaries. 

,. It was probably at a period subsequent to the 
Saxon invasion, when a Teutonic dialect came to 
be inoculated on the aboriginal tongue, that a 
more laconic and artificial expression of verbal 
action was formed, by compounding with the ra- 
dical or substantive form of the verb, the inflec- 
tions of the active auxiliary (to do). 



19 



Do 


love 


love 


doing 
done 


love 
love 


lov-ing 

lov-en or loved.* 


I do 


love 


I love 


Thou do-st 


love 


thou love-st 


he do-th 


love 


he love-th 


he do-es 


love 


he love-s 


we^j 

yef 

theyj 
I did 






do love 


love 


love 


I love-d 


thou di-dst love 


thou love-dst 


he 1 

i 






we 

y e 

theyj 


di-d love 


love-d 


If I — they do love 


love 




di-d love 


love-d 



This latter form is, in reality, the only verb, 
the former being an entire phrase composed of 
one or more participles united to different aux- 
iliary verbs. Ex.f 

* The ancient English participles were almost all formed in 
(en) as many of them are at this day, 
t " Either the English language" (says Lindley Murray) " has 



20 

I am loved 

We have been loving 

He shall have been loved. 

no future tense, a position too absurd to need refutation, or 
that future tense is composed of the auxiliary and the prin- 
cipal verb. If the latter be true, as it indisputably is, then aux- 
iliary and principal only constitute a tense in one instance ; and 
from reason and analogy may doubtless do so in others, in 
which minuter divisions of time are necessary or useifn. What 
reason can be assigned for not considering this case as other 
cases, in which a whole is composed of several parts, or of prin- 
cipal and adjuncts? There is nothing heterogeneous in the 
parts ; and precedent, analogy, utility, and even necessity, au- 
thorise the union." 

If by tense be understood a technical inflection, then cer- 
tainly there is no future tense in the English language. If tense 
be the synonime of period only, then all those, not only of the 
English, but of any other tongue, however numerous, are insuf- 
ficient to express all the different epochas combined with all the 
different conditions and modifications of verbal action, if every 
one of these expressions be made to constitute a distinct cen^e, 
it would follow that the less a language possesses of flexibility, 
the greater is the number of its tenses ! And we would ask of 
Lindley Murray, whether, if he were composing a grammar of 
the absolutely uninflected Malay tongue, he would, in consistency 
with his theory, ascribe to its immoveable verbs, as many tenses 
as it might be possible to discover of distinct auxiliaries to em- 
ploy with them. 

The same remark applies with equal force to the pretended 

cases of the English name ; for if the simple application of a 

relative to a name constitutes a case, the English name has just 

as many cases as it is susceptible of different relations. 

This dispute, like many others, arises out of a blind attach-. 



21 



The two modes of the English verb, are the di- 
rect and conditional* 



ment to the forms of antiquity ; and a reluctance to deviate, even 
in bestowing denominations, from those she has prescribed. If 
the English language is deficient in a future tense, the .Hebrew 
tongue is wanting in the present one. Nevertheless, it is not 
pretended that the last is incompetent to express a present ac- 
tion, or the former to predict an approaching one ; but it is 
not in either case effected by tenses, which, if the term has any 
grammatical meaning, signify temporal inflections of the verb. 

Each language adopts its own method to supply the defici- 
ency of these modulations, which in the Latin and Greek 
tongues (and in certain modern ones, though less perfectly) 
suffice to express the most frequently recurring relations of the 
verb. The auxiliaries which different languages employ for 
this purpose, seem to have been determined by certain inci- 
dental analogies, and must be studied separately, as no general 
grammatical principle can be traced under their various forms. 
Thus 

" I have been," in English ; or* 

" J'ai etey in French, are rendered, 

in Italian, by " Sono staro," and 
in German, by " Ich bin gewesen." 
Again — " We have gone there," is rendered in French 
by " Nous y sommes alles." 
f It is lost/' in German, by " Es gehet verlohren." And fre- 
quently the same language is at variance with itself. Thus — 
" He has been indisposed." " E stato ammalato." 
" He has been hanged." " E venuto appicato." 

* That mood cannot be accurately distinguished by the term 
indicative, which is equally employed for purposes of interro- 
gation, and, in the English tongue, of command also ; and the 



22 



The simplest, and probably the earliest form of 
conjugated verbs, are those improperly called Im- 
personal,* whose cause seems to be involved in 
its effect, and of which no subject can be pre- 
dicated distinct from the verb itself. The term 
substantive verbs may be aptly applied to these, 
which are the name itself employed with an auxi- 
liary inflection expressive of date or period only. 
Ex. It snows. It hailed. It ivas thundering . It 
did lighten ,\ 

Nearly allied to substantive or impersonal verbs, 
are those called neuter ; whose object is their own 
action. They appear to predicate a mode of being 

term subjunctive is both indefinite and incorrect. " Though I 
be" is not more subjunctive than " but I am;" but the former 
expression is conditional, the latter direct and positive. 

The English language possesses no imperative mood. The 
second persons of the form usually so called, are subjunctive in 
the singular and indicative in the plural. Its first person plu- 
ral is a periphrastic invitation or resolution only; and the third 
persons in both numbers a mere transmission of wishes or com- 
mands. 

* In as much as they are employed in all languages in the 
third person singular. 

t The greatest part of the verbs termed in grammars Imper- 
sonal, are only the third persons of either neuter or transi- 
tive verbs, governed in reality by the name or phrase, which 
forms the context. As, It seems that . ... It hurts me to see 
that. . . 



23 



of the subject, and to be rather asseverative than 
active. To verbs of this nature, which seem to 
derive their origin from the adjective, we may ap- 
ply, with more correctness, the term adjective 
verbs. Ex. 

I sleep thouwakest he lives it fades ive prosper 
You decline they grow. 

The auxiliary verbs employed to express the 
different periods of one action ; or, as they are 
usually termed, the compound tenses of a verb, 
are necessarily different; for no one of them ap- 
plies to all the eras which require to be indicated.* 
Thus to be and to do, apply either to the time 
present or past. To have is confined to a past 
signification^ while the power of will and shall, is 
essentially future or prophetic.f 

* It is worthy of remark, that the auxiliary verbs, in those 
languages in which they are employed, are all monosyllables of 
short and somewhat abrupt enunciation. For it is not admit- 
ted that the ancients employed auxiliaries. Possum, volo, nolo, 
malo, &c. are not such, any more then their synonimes qiito, 
accipio, recuso, prefero, and others. They are verbs assevera- 
tive of power or choice, and are all resolvable into a declaratory 
form. Pot-sum. Vol-eo % Non vol or nol-eo. Magis vol-eo. 
(See Part the Second.) 

t The verb shall, is simply predicative. Will, expresses de- 
termination or authority. And as the pleasure of the first 



24 



Modes are employed to ascribe to names and 
verbs those properties the subject they denomi* 
nate are capable of including ; but which their 
original designation does not express or imply. 
It is therefore evident they cannot be used with- 
out a substantive either expressed or understood. 

Modes are naturally divided by their attribu- 
tion to names or verbs into 

Adnames, or, as th* ra vaguely termed, adjec- 
tives; and adverbs. 

Both these divisions are in English alike and 
absolutely indeclinable, that is, unsusceptible of 
the inflections of case, gender, or number. 

person becomes injunctive on the second and third, and vice 
versa, these two verbs lend each other a reciprocal meaning, as 

follows : 

Predictive. 
I shall. Thou wilt. He will. We shall. You will. They will. 

Imperative. 
I will. Thou shalt. He shall. We will. You shall. They shall. 

For want of a due acquaintance with this peculiar construction 
foreigners are often led into incorrectness of expression. 

The Hebrew language possesses the same distinction, viz. a 
futurum imperativum and a futurum narrans, or fut : simpliciter 
as it is differently called. The former, the synonime of shall, 
the latter of will. 



25 



Adnames are distinguished by their origin into 
Proper 

Verbal or participular 
Pronominal 
and Numerical. 

The first are expressive of property or charac- 
ter, as good, white, small, horizontal. 

Proper adnames ger i rally admit of the degrees 
of comparison, * " ' 

There are two degrees of comparison,* usually 
called the comparative and superlative degrees. 

The terms dual and plural degrees would be bet- 
ter employed. Comparison takes place alike in 
both cases, and the term is therefore improperly 
restricted to one of them. Whereas in the first 



* It is less to be wondered at that the minutious spirit which 
delights itself in multiplying distinctions where no difference 
exists, should have induced the earliest grammarians to insti- 
tute what they call a positive degree, than that all subsequent 
philologists should, till very lately, have concurred in sanctioning 
the absurdity. The first of these degrees of comparison (the 
positive) is only such by their own showing, because there is 
nothing to be compared ; and it is almost trivial to observe that 
there can exist no comparison of a thing with itself. 

D 



26 



there must be two subjects, and in the second 
three or more. 

In such English adnames as are susceptible of 
dual and plural comparative inflections, they are 
formed by adding r or er, and st or est to the po- 
sitive termination.* 



* This change of inflexion, where it takes place (that is, in 
words whose measure does not exceed iwo syllables) is formed in 
English, as in many other languages, by a combination of the sy- 
nonimes of more and most with the Adname — thus : 

fore with more becomes foremore ; out ..... outmore. 
or former or outer, 

with most foremost . . and . . . outermost, 

or first; outmost, 

or utmost. 
In order to demonstrate the conformity of our tongue in this 
construction, with the dictates of nature, and the practice of 
other idioms, it will be necessary to anticipate a little on the 
comparison of analogies, which forms the subject of the second 
division of this essay. In the German language, 

Ehe (early) with mehr (more) becomes Eher (former or earlier) 

and, Ausser (exteriour) becomes Ausserer. 

The same radicals with meist (most) become Eheste, or Erste, 

and Ausserste. 
In Latin : 

Pravus, with major (i. e. maior) becomes prav-ior. 

with maximus («. e. massimus) .... pravissimus. 
The literal element of the Saxon and English comparatives, 
mehr, more, appears in the adjective more or mawr; the positive 



27 



A verbal adnoun, is the adjective form of a verb, 
employed as a mode, and thence denominated par- 
ticiple. Its two terminations in ing and ed, or en, 
bespeak the mobility of a verb, united to the qui- 
escent meaning of a modal. These adnouns are 
.not in the English language susceptible of com- 
parative inflection. 

Pronominal or personal adnouns are expres- 
sive of relation, right or pertainance: as my- 
mine, thy-thine, his, her-hers, its, our-ours,* 



expression of great, in the different dialects of the Celtic lan- 
guage. Thus claymore, or glaymore, (gladius major) the great or 
broad sword ; ben, or pen, a hill ; benmore, the great hill. We 
are thus led at once to the first rudiment of comparative inflec- 
tion, and obtain a striking illustration of the manner in which 
language gradually became inflected. 

It is proper, while on this subject, to explain the following 
anomalous form of comparative expression in the English lan- 
guage. — " The more I examine, the better I like it." The is here 
a corruption of the Saxon affirmative je oxja, which is likewise 
used as a comparative conjunction, and signifies, by how much, 
by so much; in which sense it is synonimously employed in 
the corresponding sentence, " je mehr, je besser" — ." Yea more 
— yea better" — would be a much more correct, and just as 
euphonic form of English phrase. 

* When the substantive, which claims a possessive relation, is 
present, and juxta posed to the pronominal, every part of the 
last, except its termnative (s), which is the general expression of 
such relation, is abscinded as unnecessary, it beii;g useless 



28 
your-yours, their-theirs, which, whose, one, 

to express the generic quality of a predicate, when that predi- 
cate is itself at hand. Thus, we do not say, 
Maria hers book ; but 

Maria's book ; or " The book is Maria hers;" but 
" The book is Maria's." 
Secondly. When the substantive which claims the relation is 
understood, the relation itself is understood also, and the prono- 
minal drops the terminal (s) as unnecessary ; still indicating, by 
a sexual pronominal, the absent predicate. Ex. 
" This is her (t. e. Maria's) book." 
Thirdly. When not only the substantive that claims the re- 
lation, is understood, but the declaratory verb is interposed be- 
tween the subject of relation and its pronominal, the sexual pro- 
nominal is written at full length, because in this case it is neces- 
sary not only to assert the relation, but also to define the absent 
object of that relation. 

" The book is hers" (t. e. Maria's).* 
It is obvious, that the same rules apply to the plural pronomi- 
nals as the singular. 

Fourthly. When the declaratory verb is made to intervene 
between the pronominals my, thy, and their substantive, the (y) 
is in like manner changed into — ine. 

As it is impossible to predicate the relations of the first and 
second persons, singular or plural, otherwise than colloquially, 

* The youthful mathematician may perceive a strong analogy, 
between this grammatical equation, and the algebraic one. As 
every function of a quantity must be included in its relation of 
equality, so every predicate of an object, must be comprehend- 
ed in the expression of its identity. 

For a further consideration of this subject, See Part Second* 



29 
the,* this, that, &c. 

Numerical adnouns are an, or a ; f one, two, 
three ; first, second, third, &c. £ 

it is only in tbe last of the above cases, that their pronominals 
are subjected to any change of inflection. 

* The adname, or, as it is usually called, the definite article 
(the), is indicative, or personal, both in its meaning and its de- 
rivation ; this, that, the. So in the German language ; . . . 
dieser, (this), jener, (that), der (or in low Dutch, de) from 
which last our English (the) is immediately derived. 

The Italian il, and the French le, are similar derivatives of 
the Latin ille. 

t The indefinite article, as it is termed, an or «, is so unequi- 
vocally a numerical adname, that it is, in almost all languages, 
the expression of unity ; Ex. 
Eng. French. Ital. Latin. Greek. German. Dutch. 
an or a un uno unus eis ein een, from 

which last, its primary form (an) is derived ; the (n) being drop- 
ped for the sake of euphony, in those cases only where the suc- 
ceeding word begins with a consonant. 

t The numerals, one, two, three, &c. are as rigorously ad- 
names, as the ordinals, first, second, and third : and this whe- 
ther their subject be expressed or understood. 

Even in pure arithmetic, where they are considered abstractly 
and substantially, the same is the case. For as number is no- 
thing more than aggregation of unities, so each term employed 
is a plural adname, to which the substantive unities is under- 
stood. 

This doctrine will be better elucidated by adverting to the 
case of fractions, which, as they are taught and considered 



30 
Adverbs are susceptible of three of the four 



to be portions of unity , it is evident that integers are multiples 
of the same. 

Own, is an adname, derived from the Saxon eigen, and is so 
far from possessing any pronominal power, that, like its syno- 
nime, it requires the aid, either of a substantive, or a pronomi- 
nal, to impart to it any meaning whatsoever. 

His their William's own house. 

Self is a name, the synonime of individuality. 

Those grammarians, who pretend that the adjectives some, 
other, any, all, such, none, &c. &c. are pronouns (See Mur- 
ray's grammar, p. 64), forget to include many, few, multitude, 
one, two, a thousand, in short all the numerals, as well ordinal 
as cardinal, under the same denomination. 

In the expressions " a few more," " a great many men," 
few and many are substantives, expressive of aggregations of 
unity; as, a. dozen, a gross, une centaine, una dozina, ein decker, 
&c. and the relative (of) is understood to the succeeding sub- 
stantive, as in the synonimous German expressions, " ein 
wenig," " eine grosse menge" (a great many). 

" Many a gem," &c. is a corruption of speech, which, al- 
though poetical licence has in some degree authorized, we 
ought not to attempt reconciling with the analogies of the 
tongue. Many is here made to perform the part of an enunie- 
rative adverb, as in the French expressions, " bien de fleurs," 
M peu de gens," and others similar. 

It is evident, from what has been stated on the subject of 
modes, that the faculty of comparison in adnames, like that 
of gender in names (See note t 11), is accessary, and not inhe- 
rent. Nature has established the distinction between such of 
them as are, and as such are not, susceptible of the relation of 



31 

distinctions applicable to adnouns.* 

Thus, welly ill , wisely, industriously, lengthways^ 
downwards, simply, only (i. e. one-ly), alone (i. e. 
all-one, from allein, Germ.), are proper adverbs. 

Lovingly, weetingly, learnedly, are verbal, or 
participular ones. 

comparison with homogeneous terms, and the practical eu- 
phonies of the language, have determined in what cases compa- 
rison may be expressed by a change of inflection, and where it 
is necessary to employ, for that purpose, the comparative ad- 
verbs. 

* Adverbs are words ascriptive of qualities or modes of being 
to verbs, as adjectives are to names. They derive their origin 
from almost all the parts of speech, but principally from modes, 
in the mere juxtaposition of which to the verb, their rudiment is 
to be sought, as that of modes themselves in the juxtaposition of 
names to other names. They are generally rendered adverbial 
by annexing to their rudiments a peculiar set of terminations, 
each of which terminations is almost always itself a mode, expres- 
sive of similitude or capability.* The ratio of their construc- 
tion being for the most part natural and obvious, they require 
little more remark in this place ; especially as the subject of 
their etymology has been so ably handled by the first philologist 
of this, or, perhaps, any other age. 

* Ex. Wisely from "— lyk," ang.-sax : " leich," or " gleich," 
1 Germ. : the adjective of similitude ; otherwise, from " weise" 
(manner or way) ; heavenwards, from, " — warts," the adverbial 
of direction. 



32 



Once, twice, thrice; fourthly, fifthly, are numer- 
ical adverbs. 

Connective words, are of two kinds, usually, 
but improperly, distinguished by the terms prepo- 
sition and conjunction, inasmuch as both are pre- 
positive and both conjunctive. 

The first may be more correctly named relatives, 
as their function is to determine the relation of 
the names or substantives with the other parts of 
the phrase. (See on this subject, note |, p. 14.) 

The second class calls for a subdivision into 
distinctives and conditionals. 

Distinctives are employed indifferently to ex- 
press the connection of either names, adnames or 
verbs; as, and, either, whether, or, neither, nor. 

When they are so employed, to connect two or 
more verbs in a sentence, the subsequent verbs 
always follow the mood of the first one, whether 
it be direct or conditional. 

Conditionals are used to express stipulations, 
or contingency, and like the precedent division, 
are alike applicable to names, adnames, or verbs. 
Ex. but, when, though. 



33 



In the dead languages, and in certain modern 
ones, the moods governed by these conditionals, 
are peremptorily and capriciously, because differ- 
ently determined ; but in English, they always 
govern a director indicative mood, when the action 
they thus infer, is taken for granted ; and a con- 
ditional, or subjunctive, when they are meant to 
express doubt or uncertainty . # 

The class called interjections, as they are col- 
lected together in most grammars, has no claim 
to a place among the organized parts of speech. 



* Their construction, though somewhat more artificial than 
that of adverbs, can yet be retraced to a similar source. The 
chief distinction between these two classes of words consists 
in the laconism of the latter, which appear to have been made 
out of other parts of speech by abridgment and abscission, as the 
former by combination and additional terminations. A little 
"reflection on the subject will suffice to show, that this difference 
is perfectly in the natural progress of language. For conjunc- 
tions, as they are called, are always the grammatical expression 
of a postulate ; and prepositions the synonimes of the alge- 
braic signs of relation ; while on the other hand, adverbs are 
functions of the verb to the meaning of which they contribute, 
and therefore require to be clearly and competently stated. The 
improvement of speech called therefore for a reduction of the 
former into the shortest monosyllabic signs that can serve for 
their distinct enunciation, and will disregard any degree of pro- 
lixity in the last, which may be necessary in order to render a 
due and full expression of their meaning. 



34 



They are either the inarticulate and involuntary 
expressions of undefined emotion, or else com- 
pound words, and even whole sentences. The 
idle maledictions which every language furnishes, 
and the vulgar of all countries are too much in the 
practice of hazarding, on the most trifling provo- 
cation, might come with equal propriety under 
the same denomination. For what indeed is po- 
pular swearing, but a noisy unmeaning interjec- 
tion! 



PART II 



OF COMPARATIVE ANALOGY 



We have endeavoured to trace the order, in 
which the parts of speech arose successively out 
of the increasing wants and multiplying ideas of 
society, and to ascertain the mechanism of the 
English tongue, considered in itself, and without 
reference to those forms under which the same 
thoughts were enounced in languages spoken 
now no more. It will be well at present, to di- 
rect the pupil towards an inquiry into its compe- 
tency for the expression of all that can form the 
subject of human intercourse, by a more extended 
comparison of its forms, with those of such other 
living or dead languages, as enter into the custom- 
ary plan of a liberal education. By this means 
a notion may be acquired of the principles of Uni- 
versal Grammar, which in his subsequent labours 
to unravel the particular ones of each foreign 
tongue, will save a student much time, and be 
found to anticipate the solution of many difficul- 
ties. He will thereby possess the advantage a 



36 



traveller has, who enters on the survey of a terri- 
tory with a chart in his hand, that points him out 
the bearings of each leading object, and the nature 
of each soil, before another, who is obliged to 
plunge over hedge and ditch, through held and 
forest, unknowing what to expect, and losing 
sight of one land mark, before he comes in view 
of the next. 

As the English is a language, composed chiefly 
of indeclinables ; and as its constructions are ex- 
tremely simple and analogous, we have found no 
difficulty in following hitherto the order of nature 
in developing its theory. But in comparing its 
forms, with those of other languages more com- 
plicated, and in which the different parts of 
speech become mutually confluent, as it were, 
into each other, it will be necessary to change the 
arrangement, and follow one more conformable 
to that, their greater artificiality has compelled 
their grammarians to adopt. 

There is no doubt that names and verbs were 
in their origin, simple and indeclinable words; 
and the probability has been urged, that both 
were generated from imitative, or pantomimic 
sounds. But in the course of time, certain ex- 
pressions became necessary, in order to point out 
with precision the multiplying relations of the 



37 



former class of words. These expressions were, 
at first, nothing more than different aspirations, 
accompanied by indicative gestures; for which 
gestures, they were, by gradual acquiescence, 
substituted, and grew, by improvement, into pre- 
positions.* The pronominal, or, as it is called, 
the prepositive article, the synonime of the, had 
its origin in the same necessity. 

Our language has proceeded no further; or 
rather has dropped all subsequent refinement, 
and lapsed back, in this respect, into primeval 
simplicity. For the Saxon idiom, which has fur- 
nished the superstructure of the English tongue,t 

* In the first part of this essay, the liberty has been taken to 
suggest a more correct nomenclature of grammatical terms, than 
that hitherto in use, and the suggested alterations have been 
rigidly adhered to throughout that chapter. But in the collation 
of our native forms, with those of foreign idioms, it is thought 
best, for obvious reasons, to revert back to the customary de- 
nominations of the several parts of speech, still protesting 
against the insufficiency or incorrectness of many of them, and 
maintaining the absolute necessity of their improvement. 

fMuch pains have been taken to render evident the derivation 
of our modern English from the Anglo-Saxon. In fact their 
lineal identity is so obvious, that all proof on the subject ap- 
pears redundant. But it is to be kept in mind that the Anglo- 
Saxon is itself a derivative tongue, which has arisen from a com- 
mixture of the more ancient Celtic language with the Saxon and 
Scandinavian dialects of its early invaders. In this compound 



33 



is almost as multifarious as the Latin, in the in- 
flection of its pronominals. 

The distinctions of plurality and gender were 
next expressed by appropriate changes of termi- 
nation of the prepositive article ; and in this stage 
of pliability the articles of certain modern lan- 
guages have taken up their repose. 

The Latins do not appear to have continued 
the use, or even handed down the form of the 
prepositive article,* which, nevertheless, must 
have made a part of their language, till that period, 
when the declinability of their names, rendered 
its employ superfluous.! But the Greeks pro- 
ceeded to combine, for purposes of brevity, and 
of a more free and rapid enunciation, the generic 
inflections of their prepositive article, with the 



the Saxon evidently prevails ; in so much that the two princi- 
pal differences between the Anglo-Saxon and the German, whe- 
ther ancient or modern, consist, first in a great simplification of 
the inflections of the latter, and, secondly, in the loss of its 
transposibility, which thence ensues. 

* Hie is not the, but this : " Hie labor, hoc opus est." 

" monstrari digito, et dicier, hie est." 

" Ille petit crucem meritis pretium, hie diadema." 
t From the evident similitude of their nominal and verbal in- 
flections with those of the Greek, it is probable that their early 
prepositive bore the same resemblance. 



39 



separate relative words, that expressed all the 
relations in which it was employed, and in this 
manner have modulated it into what_are termed 
cases. The exact gradations of this change, either 
in the Greek, or in any anterior language, the lapse 
of time, and the want of record, have wrapped in 
obscurity, because the earliest writings bear a 
date subsequent to the entire construction of each 
language. But a slight attention to the incipient 
or imperfect formation of declensions, to the pre- 
positive in certain modern tongues, will furnish 
both a proof and an example,* of the mode in 
which this gradual inflectibility was created. 

With the aid of prepositives, thus modulated, 
the Greeks could express, without the need of se- 
parate prepositions, the most customary relations 
in which their names, hitherto indeclinable as ou. 

* Thus in Italian was formed 

from il from la 

combined with di or di-il .... del or di-la . . della. 
a or a-il . . . . al a la . . alia, 
da or da-il . . . . dal da la . . dalla. 



from i or di-i . , . . dei from le or di-le, delle. 
ora-i .... ai or a-le, alle. 

or da-i . . . . dai or da-le, dalle. 

In a like manner were formed the French prepositive cases, 
du, au, des, mix. 



40 



own, might stand with the other parts of the 
phrase. 

But it was after wards discovered, that this ex- 
pression was susceptible of yet farther abbrevia- 
tion, by annexing, or cementing, as it were, the 
prepositives so inflected to the termination of 
their indeclinable names.* 

In this manner the necessity of either a sepa- 
rate prepositive article or of distinct prepositions, 
was superseded in each respective language, by 

* Thus from the definite article (o vel oc) combined with the 
radical Aoy is Aoy-oe. From (rj) with the radical Mover is Movcr-a. 
-ov -V 

-« -if 

-ov -av 

jQ *** N *** 

-01 -at 

-av -uv 

-ois -ais 

-ovc -ae 

The third declension is formed, in like manner, from the inflec- 
tions of the indefinite article (etc) an or one, or rather of its pri- 
mary ungeneric form (sv). 
Thus: Acr/iirac 

with ev-oq becomes Aa/unrad-og 

£V-l -i 

tv-a -a 

and its plurals by those of the plural numerical rpetg, rptov, 
rptffi, in a similar manner. 



41 



applying all their conjoint inflections to the 
nouns themselves, or rendering the latter declin- 
able.* 



*The modulations of the Latin nouns follow so closely those 
of the Greek, that the former must be considered in this respect 
to be an imitative tongue. 

" The Sanscrit nouns are all divisible into declensions, ac- 
cording to the final letters in their crude, i. e. radical state. There 
are eight cases in three numbers, and the change of inflection 
in all of them differs little from the following form." 
Baan (radical) an arrow. 
Nom. Baan-oh 

Accus. Baan-ung 

Baan-ano (with) 
Dative Baan aayo 
Ablat. Baan-aat 

Gen. Baan-osyo 

Voc. Baan-o 

Baan-a (in) 
The resemblance of many of these inflections with those of 
the corresponding cases in the second Greek declension, is 
too obvious to be passed unnoticed. 

Nom. — oh — os vel ov. 
Gen. — osyo — ov 
Dat. — aayo — a 
Ace. — ung — ov 
The Greeks, unwilling on the one hand, to multiply to incon- 
tinence the number of their nominal inflections, or, on the 
other, to be compelled like the Latins, to express various and even 
contradictory relations under the same termination, have content- 
ed themselves with continuing to use as in the primary unin- 
fected form of their language, the separate prepositions for 



42 
It has been already observed, that the earliest 

that purpose, as they seem to have left certain tenses of their 
passive voice imperfect, for a similar reason. 

No such inconvenience could arise from this complexity of 
the Sanscrit declensions, which are the obvious annexation of 
dissyllabic cases of a prepositive article to the root of the noun; 
but in Greek, where, if not wholly imitative, they are so abridged 
as to have lost all immediate traces of their original, the same 
complexity would have been a greater evil than it was meant to 
avoid. Inflection is itself the creature of convenience, and the 
human mind would instantly reject any proposed substitution, 
which either through abstractness or complexity tended to bur- 
den instead of relieving it. 

All languages, the inflections of whose nouns are determined 
by their respective sexual terminations, must have possessed 
them originally in a shorter radical form, whether such radical 
be grammatically recognized as in Sanscrit or not. 

In Greek the nominative case or, thema of the noun, is gene- 
rally supplied with an added terminal, expressive either of dis- 
tinct sex or of the absence of sexuality. 

In Latin the radical nominatives seem to be generally thrown 
together into the third declension. 

In German the nominatives are wholly radical, save where 
a distinct feminine termination be purposely applied to them. 

The gradual progress of inflectibility is very clearly exempli- 
fied in this ancient tongue. The articles being first rendered 
casual by a combination with different relatives, impart their 
inflections to the noun, and enable it by this means to dispense 
with their separate aid. The noun, in like manner, transfers its 
own inflections to the adjective, whenever the latter represents 
an widerstood, or absent substantive. 
Thus : der mann becomes mann 



43 



adjective form consisted in the mere juxtaposi- 
tion of those names to each other, a distinguishing 
quality of the one of which is meant to be added 
to the meaning of the other ? and that our language 
at the present day, affords numerous examples of 
this practice. It has been shown how in process 
of time such words grew into adjectives ascrip- 
tive of their whole import to other nouns. 

So long as these nouns remained without in* 
flection, and their relations to each other, or to the 
other parts of the phrase, were marked by distinct 
prepositions, it was natural their adjectives should 
continue equally indeclinable ; and such they 
have remained in English to this time. But as 
soon as the use of separate prepositions was su- 
perseded by their conversion into terminal inflec- 
tions of the noun itself, it became necessary that 
a corresponding change should be made in the 



des mannen 


mannes 




dem marine 


mannem 




den man - 


maim 




and again 






der sterbliche raann 


becomes 


sterblicher 


des sterblichen inaunes 




sterbliches 


dem sterblichen manne 




sterblichem 


den sterbliche maiin 




sterblichen. 



44 



adjective, in order to indicate with precision and 
ease the particular substantive to which each be- 
longed : and as the inflections of .these substan- 
tives were determined (in part) by their respective 
genders, it was indispensable that every adjective 
should be rendered susceptible of inflections cor- 
respondent to those of substantives of every gen- 
der to which it might be applied. The inflections 
of each substantive were thus annexed, as occa- 
sion called for it, to the root of each adjective, 
with this restriction, that as in both the Greek 
and Latin languages the termination of a noun 
decided the form of its inflection into one or other 
of the two principal modes of declension, the 
same rule obtained in regard to adjectives, whose 
declension under one or the other form, was de- 
termined, like that of nouns, by the last syllable of 
their radical. 

The Greek and Latin adjectives are inflected 
through all their cases and genders, in both num- 
bers ; and the former, in a third or dual number 
also.* In the German language, the same takes 

* The first and second declensions of Greek adjectives are 
formed, like those of their nouns, by the definite article ; and 
the third by the numerical or indefinite one. 

The Greek dual number, both in names and adjectives, is 



45 



place in the singular; but in the plural number 
there is no generic inflection.* 

The Italian and French adjectives have a mas- 
culine and feminine inflection, in both numbers, 
but no declension. 

The English adjective is indeclinable. 

The comparative inflections of the Greek lan- 
guage are extended to names, pronominals, verbs, 
adverbs and relatives.^ 

formed by affixing to the root the inflections of the numerical 

Ai/w, dvoiv. 

The most striking resemblance subsists between the Sanscrit 
and Latin generic inflections. 

Kritu krita kritum. 

Magnus magna magnum. 

* Where a verb intervenes, in qerman, between the name 
and its adjective, the latter becomes indeclinable. 

t The similitude between the Sanscrit, Persian and Greek 
comparative inflections, is too considerable to be passed by 
without notice. 

Sans. krishna krishnatarah krishnatamuh 
Pers. khub khubtar khubtarim 

Greek irporog irportpoq irporarog. 

The irregular Greek comparison seems yet more closely imi- 
tative of that of the Sanscrit. 

mati matiyan matfshta 



46 



In Latin they are restricted to Modes] that is, 
to adjectives and adverbs only,* in which the 
German and English languages follow its ex- 
ample.! 

The comparative inflections of the Italian are 
very imperfect, and almost wholly restricted to 
the plural (or superlative) degree, and that in its 
extreme expression.^ 

It is to be remarked, that the Hebrew and Arabic languages 
have no comparative inflections. " Apud Hebrasos adjectiva 
non comparantur variatione graduum, sed particularum vel vo- 
cularum adjectione, aut periphrasi." 

* The only Latin comparative verb is malo, i. e. magis volo. 

t Rather, which in English is sometimes adjective and some- 
times adverbial, is derived from the German rath (counsel, ad- 
vice), whence rather (more advised). It is therefore in either 
case a comparative word of the dual degree, both in its meaning 
and its inflection. Its Latin synonime potius (i. e. potentius) is 
of the same construction. 

X But in compensation for this deficiency, the vocal termina- 
tions of the Italian language afford an almost indefinite licence 
in the use of terminal additions to their names, expressive of 
augmentation and diminution, endearment and reproach, beauty 
and ugliness, of quantity, of contempt or debasement, et cetera. 
Some of these terminals, which appear to have had their origin 
in a playfulness of speech, and to be entirely conventional, viz. 
too, — ito, — etto, — ello, — accio, — uccio, et cetera, are alike appli- 
cable to nouns and adjectives ; while others (as — one) are sub- 
stantive terminations only, and seem to substitute for an adjec- 
tive comparison, the positive assertion of majority in the noun 



47 



The French language has no comparative in- 
flections. 

The English pronoun differs from the other 
classes of its nouns, by having, in imitation of other 
European languages, an objective, or accusative 
case. Ex. 

I thou (he she it) we ye they 
me thee (him her it) us you them. 

In this construction may be observed a strict 
adherence to nature, and an evidence that the 
human intellect is seldom directed by mere ca- 
price in the formation of language. The third 
person is the only one, in which a sexual pronoun, 
or a sexual inflection of the pronoun is required, 
because it is the only one, which is at the same 
time indicative and declaratory. 

The Latin construction extends the same dis- 
tinction to the plural number of that person, and 
is therein imitated by the Italian and French lan- 
guages. But this disposition would be of little 
use in the English tongue. For as that tongue 

itself; asfrom/wr,Lat. is furbo, whence furb-one (a great thief); 
from latro, Lat. and It. is latrone, (a plunderer or 
pirate,) 



48 



is guided by nature in the generic arrangement 
of its names, no mistake can arise from the em- 
ployment of an ungeneric plural pronoun, in those 
phrases where the predicates are all of one sex ; 
and as according to the well known rule of syn- 
tax, when nouns of different gender unite to con- 
stitute plurality, the most noble* includes them 
all, the distinction is in that case useless even in 
those languages where it has place. It was pro- 
bably adopted in the Latin and its derivative 
tongues, only in conformity with their capricious 
attribution of gender to the names of things 
ungeneric in themselves and frequently inani- 
mate. 

The German language is similar to the English 
in the generic disposition of its pronouns. 

The French and Italian pronouns have an 
oblique case also.f 

•» 

* This is considered, in the Greek and Latin, as well as all 
modern European languages, to be the masculine ; but in He- 
brew, Arabic, and the kindred dialects of Western Asia, all that 
is ungeneric is placed under a feminine inflection. 

t The use of which appears to be very capricious, and only to 
be learned in the distinct practice of each language. Ex. 
Je te vois 
II te la donne, " or 



49 



The German, Latin and Greek pronouns are 
declined into different cases in a similar manner 
with their nouns, and like them are capable of 
expressing their relations by changes of inflection 
only. 

The indefinite (or, as it is usually called, imper- 
sonal) pronoun, is peculiar to the languages of 
modern times. Ex. 

Eng. Germ. French. ItaL 

one man on si. 

It appears to have been adopted as a substitute 
for that form of verbal inflection called the passive 
voice, as its functions are executed in Latin and 
in Greek by the passive impersonal verb. 

The English indefinite pronoun (one) is em- 
ployed in a singular sense only, synonimous to 
the French pronominal chacun; while in other 
modern languages it has also a cumulative mean- 
ing, and signifies the public, or at least an aggre- 
gate portion of society, and is used under circum- 

II la donne a toi" 
" Ti daro la mano" 
" Ti vedo" 
" A ti aspettiamo." 



50 



stances where the plural (they) is employed by 
us for the same purpose. Thus : 
One lives ;* man lebt ;f on vit ; J si vive ; vivitur/ 
They say ; man sagt ; on dit ; si dice ; dicitur. 

One in English is susceptible of a plural termi- 
nation, and in German and French likewise ; but 
this is when employed in a definite sense, as a plu- 
ral pronoun. Thus : 

" The wise ones say," 

" The knowing ones are taken in." 

Ones is not here an impersonal, nor an enume- 
rative word, but the substitute of a plural or ag- 
gregative noun, as individuals, or people; in other 
words, a plural pronoun. 

So in French, " les uns et les autres ;" and in 
German " die eine und die andre." 

The English pronominal adjectives are as nu- 
merous as those of most other languages ancient 

* One or an, Germ, ein (being, or one that is) from sein (to 
be) ; as Etc or ev from Etv (esse). 

t (Man) Germ, "some" or" more than one;" whence mannig 
(several, many). 

% On is derived in like manner from ogni, Ital. omnis, Lat. 



51 

or modern: and equally competent, with the aid 
of prepositions, to express all the relations of lan- 
guage. The three English attributives his, her , 
its, by a very peculiar modification are expres- 
sive of the sex, not of the name to which they 
are applied, but that of which they are predi- 
cated. 

This form of relation, common to the German 
with our own tongue, imparts often a brilliant pre- 
cision to meanings, which either in the other mo- 
dern languages, or in those of Greece and Rome, 
cannot be expressed with the same brevity * 

* " Hers the mild lustre of the beaming morn, 
" And his, the radiance of the risen day." 

These words his, her, hers, its, are commonly asserted to be 
the oblique cases of the respective pronouns he, she, it. But 
it is presumed that in addition to the reasons adduced in a for- 
mer part, that opinion will be completely refuted by the follow- 
ing arguments, 

1st. The German pronominals from which they are derived, 
seiner (his or its) and ihrer (her or hers) are declinable through 
all their numbers, cases and genders, like the other German ad- 
jectives. Seiner, seine, sein (or seines ;) Ihrer, ihre, ihr (or 
ihres), &c. 

2d. In English, as in German, they are always made to apply 
to a subsequent noun, like every other personal ; my, thy, our, 
your, their ; and there is no more reason to make them sub- 
stantive in the singular than in the plural. 



52 



Verbs are words expressive of movement, as 



Thus: 



his 
her 
its 
my 
thy 
our 



> friend. 



> freund. 



seiner 
ihrer 
seiner 
meiner 
deiner 
unserer 
your ener 

their J ihrer 

3d. Their sense is rendered in the other languages we have 
considered, by personal adjectives. As 

Son mari il suo sposo conjus suus 

Sa ferame la sua moglie uxor sua 
Ses parens i suoi genitori patres nostri 
Leur enfans la loro prole 
4th. Because, even admitting them to be the oblique in- 
flections of substantive pronouns, such inflection is ineffectual 
to make them perform the functions of the oblique (t. e. the 
genitive, dative or ablative) cases, as the substitution of them 
for the expression of such cases will show. 
Thus we cannot say 

" His (for, of him) we have no mistrust/' 
<c We ascribe them its (for, to it)." 
" We received her (for, from her) the books." 
Neither are they the generic modifications of one personal 
adjective, as some have stated, but three distinct personals, com- 
bining each of them with the relation they express, a distinc- 
tive indication of sex. For want of these distinct sexual adjec- 
tives, the French and Italian languages are compelled to employ 
a circumlocution, and make use of sexual pronouns united 
with a preposition, as . , , 



53 



Names are of things. From imitative sounds, 
pointing out a particular action of one particular 
thing, they grew by common assent to be the 
general expression of the same or similar actions, 
from whatever cause they proceeded. And it is 
in this stage of their construction that they be- 
came, correctly speaking, verbals. 

Still such words, while they remained simple 



us 1 fa lui T1 di lui 

> Book, sou livre <{ .,«,.,, r 
ter j a elle di lei J 



For his 

. J> Book, son iivre <f * "7." U .. TT r- libro. 
her 



It is remarkable that the genitive case singular of all the 
Latin third personals is deficient of sexual inflection. 

Thus, as has been before observed (See part the First, 
notes,) the ('s) of the pretended English genitive, is neither 
a mark of inflection, nor the genitive case of a distinct pronoun ; 
but the elision of a pronominal adjective (his, hers, or its) 
which serves to transfer the quality of appertainance from one 
noun to another; as we have seen that the mere juxtaposition 
of two nouns is sufficient still, in many instances, to render the 
first of them, adjective to the second. 

In the tongues of western Asia, the same generical arrange- 
ment is extended to the second as well as third persons, and 
that in both numbers. 

Thus, they are made to express 

Tuus, tua . . (o vir !) Suus, sua (deviro) t. e. his 

(o foemina !) (de foemina) hers 

Vester, vestra (o viri !) Eorum . (de viris) 
(o foemina? !) Earura . (de foeminis). 



54 



and indeclinable, only served the purpose of a 
vague intimation or notice of action, and were ra- 
ther signals, than verbs. And as occasion arose 
to express that one or more individuals were con- 
cerned in the agency, that the action was already 
done, was then doing or remained yet to be per- 
formed, and to invoke, or enounce distinctly the 
personages interested in its execution, it was ne- 
cessary to fix for that purpose on an appropriate 
set of sounds, which by their gradual arrangement 
and organization, grew to form the conjugations 
of the declaratory verb, to be. 

As other sounds became needful, in order to 
combine with the indeclinable root of verbality, 
ideas of energy, possession, will, subjection and 
the other causes and modes of action, it was easy 
to modulate them successively on the same given 
form of inflections, into the respective auxiliary 
verbs, the synonymes of to do, to have, will, shall, 
become* &c. 

* As pronouns and prepositions appear to have been in their 
origin aspirated or emphatic sounds accompanying appropriate 
gestures, to which they were called in aid, on purpose to 
strengthen and determine their meaning ; in like manner aux- 
iliaries were similar sounds employed in aid of gestures that ex- 
pressed action, assertion, will, reluctance, requiring, et cetera. 
Of these gestic indications they in time completely supplied 
the place, and became determinate signs of verbality, which, 



55 



It may be presumed that the human intellect 
would, in strict analogy with the truth of things, 
find means to class the declaration of every move- 
ment and incident, as it was remembered, wit- 
nessed or foreseen, into the three grand divisions 
of past, present and future; and that in all origi- 
nal languages, the distinct indication of them by 
tenses would be the earliest modulations of the 
declaratory verb. Means have been found to 
combine, in almost all languages, these different 
inflections of the declaratory, with the root of their 
verbal words, in order to impart to the latter its 
flexibility, or render them conjugable. It is in the 
greater or lesser pliancy of the name and verb, in 
this respect, that the simplicity or artificiality of 
language consists; all verbs, as well as names hav- 
ing been in their origin radigal and indeclinable. 

Nevertheless, the Saxon or German tongue, in 
which we are to look for the origin of the English, 
is, like ours, wanting in a future inflection ; but 
all the derivatives of the Latin language, though 

though still remaining long uninflected, were indispensable to- 
wards putting into movement the sense of other sounds. 

We have had occasion to suggest that the auxiliaries were 
probably in all languages the earliest inflected verbs. In the 
Malay tongue they are yet indeclinable s, like all the parts of 
their speech ; and in the pure dialects of modern Celtic, they 
are still the only declinable verbs. 



56 



they dropped as superfluous and cumbersome its 
plus quam perfect, have yet retained as indispen- 
sable, the picturesque modulations of the simple 
future tense. 

The English verb is conjugated in the present 
and past times only, by affixing to its root, the in- 
flections of the auxiliary (to do). The French 
and Italian verbs borrowed from the Latin a se- 
cond past tense, as the Latin has borrowed from 
the Greek a third ; and all the multiplied tenses, 
numbers, modes and voices in this last, are com- 
posed from the radical forms of the two primary 
or natural tenses, combined with the inflections 
of the declaratory verb.* 

* The earliest form of the Greek declaratory verb was wholly 
active, E« indicative and eiv infinitive,* and it is under this 
form that it has lent its aid to all the active constructions of the 
verbal system. 

Thus from tvttt- with av Is tvttt eiv 

With tUV TVITT 0) V 

with act Tv<}>deis-£i(ra~£v. 

., . , t , i, . f 

* " 'Ei/lli — ecrojuai — ab E«, inusitatum." Hederici Lex. 
•' E^t from £6> to be." Parkhurst. 

" Ew. f. ego. aor 2 ijov. Sum, existo. Quae tempora sic in usu 
non sunt ; prodest tamen ea, ut origines usitatorum notasse ; 
usus enim dicit, si/uu, etrofiai," Damm's Lexicon. 

t Tv(j)B-eic, one beaten. This construction points to a gram- 
matical as well as metaphysical relation between the particle 



57 



The Latin conjugations are evidently made by 

* and circumflexed, rvxpas-aara-av. 

With Eg>, ovy Effu are formed the present, imperfect first and 
second futures and second aorist. 

With £«, tig, u circumflexed, is the perfect tense t rerv^a, 
and with the imperfect, the plusquam-perfect eTervty-Eiv. 



which expresses unity or being, (ev) an or one, and the verb 
that declares existence ; and it is under this analogy, that we 
seem to have arrived at the first element of verbality, as every 
proposition is resolvable into the declaration of a mode of being, 

* It is clear from this form of declension, that the earliest 
generic inflections of the indefinite article were ac, a<ra, zv, an<J 
not ae, fiia, ev. 

t There were only two natural tenses, or radical modifi- 
cations of the Greek verb, namely tvkt-uv, and tztv^-uv (and 
not eivai). The declaration that the verbal action, was past or 
accomplished was made by a reduplication of i!je radical syl- 
lable of the verb, and the date of that accomplishment was 
more precisely indicated by the annexation to . iC^f either the 
present or the past tense of the declaratory, irt 6yder to assert 
either that the action is now done, or that it was done already at 
a J or nur period. The future tenses were wholly formed by the 
future of the declaratory as in the English tongue. 

This construction is in perfect harmony with the natural de- 
velopment of speech. Language and the improvement of 
mind must have made considerable progress, before mankind 
were sufficiently interested in the future, to be induced to attach 
thereto a peculiar form of inflection. What is doing, and what 
is just done, engross the whole attention of the savage. 

Hence we find that in all original languages the ended or past 
accomplishment of an action is marked by a distinct radical 
modification of the verb, independent of all such temporal and 

F 



/ 

combining the earliest form of their declaratory 

The plusquam-perfect of the declaratory verb, is only its' im- 
perfect tense put under a passive inflection. 

The imperative in the second person singular is a peremptory 
enunciation of the radical verb, in the dual and plural it is 
the same with the indicative ; and its third persons are formed 
by the annexation of those of the declaratory. 

The optative and subjunctive moods are modulated in a simi- 
lar manner on those of the declaratory verb. 

■ ■ ■— — +■ 

personal inflections as may be formed from those of the declara- 
tory. 

" In the first past tense of the Sanscrit, (a) is required to be 
prefixed to the root, and in the second, a kind of reduplication 
of the root takes place." Wilkin's Sansc. Gr. 

" To form tbte past tense in Bengalee, we must employ the 
syllabic augmentation as in Greek." Halhead's Beng. Gram. 

In Persian the expression of past action is made by annexing 
(mee) to thJ? d &dical. Ex. goften (to beat) meegoft (beaten). 

In Hebre^ the past participle (visitatus, ita ut cesset am- 
plius visitari) is distinguished from the passing participle (visi- 
tatus, ita ut adhuc visitatur) by the addition of (ne-) before the 
radical. 

It is obvious that the Greek past reduplications resemble 
those of the Sanscrit. 

Ti/7rrw e-tvictov re-rv<f>a bte-tv^uv. 

The Saxon or German past participle is formed by prefixing 
(ge-) to the radical. Thus schreibend (writing); geschrieben 
(written). 

It is here perhaps the place to observe, that where many lan- 
guages, each totally different from the others in every feature 
of general character, structure and syntax, agree in certain de- 



59 



with the root of the verb. For in considering the 
analogy between the verbs (Eo>) ire, and (E<») esse, 
which appear to have lent reciprocally their inflec- 
tions to each other, # there is no doubt the primary 

* " Ew et hio, pro quo usus dixit Eifii eo, vado, venio." 

Dan. Lex. 
All the early inflections of the Greek declaratory verb ap- 
pear to be yet farther resolvable into its radical ei, the gram- 
matical expression of equality or identity, combined with the 
different pronouns. This process may be distinctly retraced in 
many of its formations. 
Thus from ei eya is ««. 

ei <rv is uq and ego. 

n is the radical. (It has been already remark- 
ed that the earliest use of the verb was made in the third or im- 
personal (or rather absent person.) 
from ei yfMji is EfffiEv. 

£1 ff(f>(Ol £<TTE. 

The passive inflections of the Greek declaratory supply the 
passive forms of a second conjugation, into which the verbs of 
the first are generally susceptible of being transformed. So 
\ara combined with 

£ivat eis £(To^i£voq £t/bii urdi, 

forms icrravai mttcis iffra/biEvoQ iffrijini laadi. 

But these passive inflections of the Greek declaratory, as 
well as the anomalous tenses of the Latin esse, appear to 



terminations of inflection, it may be reasonably concluded that 
such common forms arise out of the nature of speech itself: and 
it is easier to conceive than to express the close analogy there is 
between this hasty reduplication and the laconic impatience of 
the savage mind. 



60 



forms of conjugation of the Latin declaratory and 
of the verb ire, stood in the same relation.* 
Eo es est emus estis ent 

Eo is it eamus itis eunt.f 

have been borrowed from an earlier and far distant idiom, as will 
be seen in a subsequent note. 

* A like interchange of the verbs expressive of existence and 
of progression, seems to have pervaded other languages from 
the Sanscrit downwards. 

" To go (or in its auxiliary capacity to be,) is irregular in 
its past tenses." Halhead's Bengalese Gr. 

" Walk before me, and be thou upright." 

" The Lord, before whom I walk /' 

y And Enoch walked with God, and was no more seen, for 
God took him." 

From a similar analogy proceeds the Latin verb perire, to go 
out from existence, and the German um-gehen. 

In Italian the synonimes of to walk, to go, to stand, and 
to be, are interchanged. 

Ando, vai, va, andiamo, andate, vanno, i. e. Ambulo, vadis 
vadit, ambulamus ambulatis, vadunt. 

Sto bene, " I stand well," for " I am well." Sono stato, Siamo 
stati, " I am stood," " we are stood," for I— we " have been." 

The same mutuation is imitated in French. — Je vais, tu vas, 
il va, Nous allons, vous allez, ils vont. 

t The second and third Latin conjugations, which include by 
much the^greatest proportion of the verbs of that language, 
and wear so close an affinity to the active inflections of the 
Greek verb, as to leave no doubt that they exhibit the earliest 
Latin ones, are merely these two declaratory forms, united tu 
different radicals. 

Mon -eo -es -et emus -etis -ent 

Leg .o -is -it imus -itis -unt 



61 



The Sanscrit verbs are modulated in a similar 
manner upon the inflections of their declaratory,* 

* A collation of the declaratory verb in Greek and Latin with 
that of the Sanscrit language, leaves little doubt from what 
source the passive inflections of the first, as well as the anomal- 
ous persons and whole tenses of the last were derived. 



Sansc. Asmi asi. asti. Svah stab sthah. Small stha santi. 
Greek Ei/lli ae am ivrov tarov Eo^ufv arrc euri. 

Latin Sum es est Sumus estis sunt. 



Sansc. Syam syah syat. Syavah syatam-atam. Syama syata syah 
Greek JLitjv etrjg sirj eujrov HtjTtjV Etfyutv eirjre eirjaav. 

Latin Sim sis sit Simus sitis sint. 



Sans. Asam aseeh aseet. Asma asta asan. 

Latin Essem esses esset. Essemus essetis essent. 



The other tenses of the Sanscrit declaratory are inflected on 
the root (b-hoo) to be ; in which tenses (b-h) is changed into 
its cognate consonants (f and v); and hence the compound imi- 
tative Latin tenses, fui fueram, fuissem, fuero, as well as the 
infinitive form of the second Latin declaratory verb (fore) on 
whose root they are inflected. 

It is evident therefore that the inhabitants of Italy and Greece, 
having acquired at some period subsequent to the accumula- 
tion of their respective codes of nomenclature a knowledge of 
the Sanscrit language and literature, borrowed from it the ano- 
malous words that are found among the different conjugations 
of their declaratory verbs, and substituted them, namely Ei/uli, 
for Ew, and (sum and fu — ) for (eo) in order to prevent the 
confusion that could not but have arisen from the want of some 
such distinction. 



62 



and in all the dialects of Western Asia the per- 
sonal inflection of their verb consists wholly in 
the annexation of the respective pronouns to its 
radical form.* 

The Sanscrit verb has six tenses, a present, three past and 
two futures, all composed by (assanand bhoo) esse and fore. 

Thus the verb (smay) combined with, 

Asmi, asi, asti. Svah, sthah, stah. Smah, stha, santi, 

forms 
Smay-ami, -asi, -ati ; -avah, -athah, -atah; -amah, -atha, -anti; 

and 
Smay-e, -ase, -ate ; -avahe, -avethe, -ete ; -amahe, -advhe, -anti ; 
the first being the neuter or reflective, the latter the active form 
of Sanscrit conjugation. 

The wonderful similitude of the first of these inflections with 
the Greek passive. 

TvirT-ojuat -rjcrai * -trcti -0/j.sdoy -ecrdov -svdov -o/neOa -earde 
-ovraiy and the second with those of the Latin regular verb, 
Am-o -as -at Am-amus -atis -ant, lead at once to 

the source from which the early inhabitants of Greece and Italy 
drew the model of their verbal inflections.f 

* Although there does not exist the slightest literal resem- 

* Admitted to have been its most ancient form. 

It is remarkable that the Greek passive voice has three dual 
persons, like the Sanscrit ; its active voice only two. 

f It is not perhaps indulging in any unreasonable conjecture to 
suppose, that a migratory tribe from Eastern India, after invad- 
ing Italy by force or insinuating themselves by fraud, engrafted 
their own native inflections on the rude Celtic or Milesian 
tongue of the land, and thus gradually formed it into the La- 
tin idiom, just as the Sanscrit was transformed into Bengalese, 
the Latin itself into Italian, and the Pictish into Anglo-Saxon. 



63 



The German verb will be found to be conju- 
gated exactly like the English, by uniting to its 

blance between the Sanscrit or Greek conjugations and those 
of the Persian, Arabic or Hebrew, it is certaiu that in all the 
tongues of Western Asia, their verbs are conjugated on the same 
principle. 

Thus the persons of the Persian declaratory are formed on 
the radical (a) be, by the oblique cases of the pronouns, 
he thou I they ye we; viz. 
ist 6e am end eed eem, into 

aast aaee aum aend aeed aeem. And all their 
verbs are modulated in a similar manner. Ex. 



meegoft he * '^ meegoftend they 

meegoftee thou }> spoke, meegofteed ye 



spoke. 



meegoftem I meegofteim we 

So from (shad) glad is 

Shadast, shadi, shadam, shadand, shadid, shadam, gaudet, 
gaudes, gaudeo, et cetera. 

The Arabic and Hebrew tongues follow exactly the Persian 
in their verbal arrangement, and in the nature and form. of their 
inflections. 

Those verbal forms only can dispense with the separate em- 

r — . 

* The pronoun is unnecessary here, because in every lan- 
guage of ancient and modern Asia the third or absent person 
is the root of the verb, and the order of inflection proceeds 
from that to the second, and then to the first person. 

In all the kindred tongues of Western Asia, the past tense is 
the only simple form of the verb, the expression of present as 
well as future action being only made in a declaratory manner 
in the Persian, Hebrew or Arabic, 



64 



root the inflections of the auxiliary (thun) the sy- 
nonime of to do* 



ployment of the governing pronoun, whose inflections are im- 
mediately and obviously formed from it. 

" In the Sanscrit syntax, the personal and other pronouns 
are often elegantly omitted, as their nominative case is in La- 
tin, the terminations of the verb being a sufficient distinction." 

Wilkins's Sanscrit Gr. 

The same takes place in the Persian, Hebrew, Greek and 
Latin languages. 

The Italian, as being immediately derivative from the Latin, 
retains the same facility. 

The French, more distant, and intermingled with other idioms, 
has lost it. 

In German, the pronouns as they now exist, and the verbal 
inflections, are evidently derived from very different sources. 

The English verbal system is simplified almost to uninflec- 
tibility. 

* The remarkable fact that in all known languages the decla- 
ratory verb is irregular, goes far to prove that it was not in any 
of them an identical and originally recognized part of speech, 
but that its libratory or equative meaning was expressed some- 
times by one, sometimes by another word, as chance or the 
analogical recollections of the orator befel. And hence, when 
at a subsequent period, their various inflections were enumerated 
into a distinct form of conjugation, they were found to belong 
to two, three or four distinct words. So the Sanscrit declara- 
tory is formed from two different radicals which appear to 
have furnished not only the inflections but the roots also 
(esse and fuisse) of that of the Latin tongue. 

The Greek declaratory is made up in part of the substituted 



65 



The passive voice has no existence in the natu- 
ral analogies of speech. It is a combination 
wholly artificial, which reverses the simple order 
of enunciation for purposes of brevity or variety ; 
and its contrivance was probably one of the latest 
efforts of Grammar in those languages in which 
it has a place. To point out the truth of this pro- 



inflections of another verb of independent but analogous mean- 
ing (11 t/t ij et cetera) ; and partly of a set of passive inflections 
borrowed from a more ancient and far distant idiom. 

The Persian employs several forms of declaration, the princi- 
pal of which is the defective verb (hastan) to be. 

There is only one verb in Arabic for to be and to have ; or 
rather it is the latter verb employed in a declaratory form. 

The German declaratory verb includes several distinct radi- 
cals (Ich bin, Er ist, Wir sein, Ich war, Ich iverde). 

The English one contains almost as many radicals ( am, art, 
is, was, be) as it has inflections. 

The more meagre a language is, the more figurative it must 
necessarily be. New meanings will require expression, and this 
expression can only be made by seeking out those terms whose 
primary signification points to something analogous. Now the 
idea of a verb abstractly expressive of truth or naked assertion 
would by no means present itself at an early period to the sa- 
vage reasoner. The declaratory, though the first of verbs, or 
rather the principle of verbality, would be one of the last of ele- 
menfary words; and hence even those languages, which we have 
accustomed ourselves to look up to with the veneration due to 
aboriginality, were far advanced in their denominations, be- 
fore they could determine on the adoption of an identical de- 
claratory word. 



66 



position, it is necessary to revert for a moment to 
our remarks on the first formation of language. 

The earliest denominations bestowed were 
Names. Oral designations were next sought to 
impart the idea of actions. But action implies an 
agent, and the idea of agency includes anteriority; 
for if the agent had not existed before the action, 
he could not have performed it. Therefore the 
agent or subject naturally precedes the verb. A 
subject is necessary to every verb, as a cause is 
necessary to produce every effect. But all verbs 
cannot have a distinct object, because many ac^ 
tions include in themselves the whole effect of 
their energy, of which the verbal expression is 
merely declaratory, and in such cases a passive 
form is impossible. Verbs therefore are not des- 
tined to express that their subject is in a state of 
sufferance, or passively recipient of the effect of 
an action, but that their subject is himself in ac- 
tion. " The man fells a tree." But in whatever 
manner we assert that the tree is felled by the man, 
whether by employing the separate auxiliary, or 
by combining its inflections, there is no present 
action; for the declaratory verb expresses only 
that the tree exists in a mode imparted to it by 
the past action of another being, who, if intro- 
duced at all into the phrase, is indicated only by 
a preposition. Ex. By him, da lui, ab illo. Here 



67 



is neither action nor agent, neither subject nor 
verb, but a mere grammatical equation. And 
the sole difference between the declaratory form 
used in modern tongues, and the passive voice 
of the Greeks, consists in employing separately 
the whole auxiliary verb, or in combining its in- 
flections only, with the radical forms of the prin- 
cipal one. 

Nevertheless the declaratory can be made to 
express a present action, but it is by employing 
the active participle. Ex. " The tree is felling." 
Under this peculiar form, the English participle 
seems to do the duty of the Latin gerund, and has 
the advantage of a greater laconism of expression 
than other modern languages possess.* It ap- 
pears also to render the true meaning of the La- 
tin passive inflection. " Caeditur caedebatur 
arbos." The tree is . . . was felling. 

That the passive voice was a subsequent re- 
finement, introduced into the Greek language, is 
proved by the imperfect state in which some of its 
tenses are left.f The original declaratory form 

* " Es wird so eben gesehlagen." 
" On est a l'abattre." 
" Sta nel caderlo." 
t These are the perfect and plusquam perfect tenses of the 
indicative, optative and subjunctive moods. 



68 
of expression has still been adhered to in these, 

The whole Greek passive voice is formed -from the passive 
inflections of the declaratory verb,* the present and future ten- 
ses from its futures, the past tenses from its plusquam perfect, 
and the aorists from its imperfect tense. And the medial 
voice is constructed in the same manner, its difference from 
the passive, consisting ratheri n radical than terminal inflec- 
tions. 

It appears probable that until that period when a knowledge 
of Sanscrit literature was extended to Greece and Italy, the two 
latter languages possessed no distinct substantive verb; a defi- 
ciency common to all the tongues of Western Asia, save the 
Persian.f 



* It was perhaps the want of a specific declaratory form in the 
early periods of the Greek language, that provoked the adop- 
tion of numerous synonimes ; asri/y^avw, vjrap^ t in\io y Ti\tB<o, 
yiyva, and lastly E«, which added to a considerable affinity of 
meaning, a degree oflaconism, the others did not present, and 
was on that account adopted by the Greeks and imitated by the 
Latins. 

It appears also that the Greeks, until the same'period, had 
no other plural personal pronouns than those expressive of 
duality, viz. Ey<a av N«i cr<j>o)i. 

Ego tu Nos vos; their indefinite plurals 
being of later derivation. 

t " Pronomina personalia hie (i. e. Persice) pro verbis sub- 
stantivis non usurpantur, secus quam apud Hebroeos Syros 
atque Arabes." Persian Grammar. 

Eyw is supposed by Dann to be derived from Ew (esse). Is 
not the converse derivation more probable 1 



69 



because it was found that many of their combin- 
ations were too prolix to be used, without injur- 
ing that euphony, they were meant to improve. 

The Sanscrit passive voice is inflected with the 
terminations of the proper active form, by the in- 
troduction of (aj) before the termination of the 
four first tenses, and occasionally the insertion 
of the vowel (i) between each person of the last 
tenses. 

Sray-ami Beating I am. 

Sray-aj-ami Beaten I am. 

The construction of both the voices of the verb 
in this language is therefore declaratory. 

The passive voice of the Latin verb has only 
three tenses in the indicative and two in the sub- 
junctive moods.* 



* Although the Latin language is imitative of the Greek in 
many respects, it does not appear to have been indebted to 
that tongue for the construction of its passive voice. After the 
verb E« was finally adopted as the Greek declaratory, and its 
inflections employed to form the conjugations of their verbal 
words, no passive constructions were attempted, until they be- 
came acquainted with those of the Sanscrit declaratory, which 
unquestionably supplied them with the forms of their passive 
verb. But it is less obvious, though perhaps equally certain, 
that the Latins, without waiting for the aid of a new declaratory, 



70 



The modern languages of Europe have no pas- 
sive voice. 

In cases where it is wished to express a state 
of sufferance, modern languages often find a sub- 
stitute for the passive voice in the use of the inde- 
finite pronoun. 

Thus " amor" is expressed in 
Ital. by " m' amassi" (i. e. si m' ama). 
Fr. " on m' aime." 
Ger. " man liebt mich." 

" One sees it" is in like manner employed for 
" it is seen," " videtur." 

The absent or impersonal form of the verb is 
often used for the same purpose, when the cause 



succeeded to give a passive inflection to their earlier one, of 
which all that is now remaining consists in the three imper- 
sonal radical forms Iri 

Itur 

Itum 
Whether design or convention, or the application of some 
monosyllabic expression of passivity, now no longer known, de- 
termined this inflection, it appears certain that all the Latin 
passive verb is modulated by its passive inflections, or — iris 
— itur, &c. as the active on its active ones, — eo — is — it — imus 
— itis — ent. 



71 



of sufferance exists within its object; in other 
words when the subject acts upon itself. 

Thus, "pcenitet me" "mi penti" " es reuet mich," 
" dolet mihi" " miduole" " es argert mich," 
are employed to express the meaning of the pro- 
positions " est mihi poena" " est mihi dolor." 
A passive form of expression, "pceniteor" "doleor" 

would here be absurd, because that state of suf- 
ferance in any object cannot be grammatically 
passive of which the object asserts itself to be the 
cause.* 



* Every verb under this impersonal form, is a substantive, 
whose quality is ascribed by the declaratory that forms its in- 
flection, to an other substantive or pronoun. 

Every neuter and transitive verb, on the other hand, is imme- 
diately resolvable into an adjective form or participle, whose 
energy is ascribed by its declaratory inflection, to another pro- 
noun or substantive. 

Thus — a?* one or the, " that which is ;" whence 

ei is, or the verbal substantive of existence. 

Is how 1 In other words, in what mode is the existing being ? 

Is in the act of beating 

U TV1TT Or TVWT-U, 

i.e. " one beating" or the subject beating. 

It has been already said that the substantive or impersonal 
form, was the earliest verb, or rather the rudiment ofverbality; 

* Or rather («) as the earliest organic words were anterior 
to all generic appendage or inflection. 



72 



Where the Latin and Italian languages employ 

and the progress of verbal expression may thus be traced from 
its element, the mere assertion of a noun denoting the energy in 
question, into the most completely modulated verb, in perfect 
analogy with that of the adjective from its element, the simple 
juxtaposition of one noun to another, into its most complex 
forms of inflection through number, case, gender and degree.* 

We are borne out by the analogies of all the ancient lan- 
guages in asserting, that in the infancy of speech, all verbal de- 
claration was impersonal or declaratory. 

" Intransitive verbs and verbs of motion, are often made to 
take the passive form in the first (i. e. our third) person sin- 
gular, when they are used in a way peculiar to this language, 
particularly in conversation. Thus from to be is formed 

" There is being" or rather, " Being is had." 

"There is being by " Sir," or " Being is had by Sir;" (you) 
being understood; for " You Sir, are" or " You, Sir, are be- 
come/' 

" This mode of using the verb, is called the substantive 
voice" -Wilkin's Sanscrit Grammar. 

" Tertia persona praeteriti cujuscunque verbi nominascit, et 
sumitur pro substantivo abstracto, nulla facta mutatione." 

Gladwin's Moonshee, or Persian Grammar. 

" From the third person perfect are formed five other inflec- 
tions, by the application of the affixed personal pronouns/' . . 
" The formative letters representing these pronouns, are taken 
from the substantive verb. Hadley's Persian Grammar. 

" The third personal pronouns (he, they) are frequently used 
in place of the substantive verb in every tense. 

Arabic Grammar. 

* The term noun adjective is more philosophically accurate, 
than was probably dreamed by those who first adopted it. 



73 



the impersonal form, the German and French often 
use the reciprocal verb. 

" Apud Hebraeos, thematis radix est tertia persona praeteriti 
perfecti ; quia simplicissima est, et constat solis literis radi* 
calibus, quae plerumque tres sunt. . . . Verbum presentis tem- 
poris non habent, sed participiura (Benoni ut vocant) i. e. prae 
mentis temporis, etiam verbi vicem supplet, addito pronomine. 

Row. Ling. Hebraicae Inst. 

" Irapersonalia, vel potius quasi impersonalia, sunt duorum 
generum, vel tertiae pluralis ab activis, vel tertiae singularis a 
passivis." Idem. 

All the substantive (or as they are called impersonal) verbs, 
that is, those verbs, which expressed an agency that was only 
recognizable in its effects, have still remained, in the Greek 
and Latin languages, determined in the third person singular. 

The same is the case in the ancient and modern German. 

It has been observed in the first part of this Essay that the 
infinitive mood and the participle stand towards each other 
and towards the other parts of inflected speech in the relation 
of substantive and adjective forms. The first expresses the 
essence of an action, the second ascribes it to an agent. Thus : 
tvttt-uv the action of beating, the (to be beating) 
tvitt-uv the one that is beating. 

And the example of all the languages above exemplified, bear 
us out in this analogy. 

" Infinitiva nominascunt, et sine ulla mutatione sumuntur pro 
substantivis abstractis, ac turn assumunt terminationem plu- 
ralem, instar nominuni." Moonshee or Pers. Gr. 

" The third person singular perfect is made by dropping the 
last syllable of the infinitive, ex. go/ten, goft, which moreover 
contains an infinitive sense, or that of the verbal noun substan- 
tive/' Hadiey's Pers. Gr. 

" The (Arabic) infinitive differs greatly from those of wes- 
tern languages, being precisely a verbal nozin substantive in the 

G 



74 



Ich berene mich. Jem' en repens. 

Ich verdriess mich. Je me chagrine. 

Ich bedaure mich. Je me plains* 

accusative case, corresponding in some measure to the Latin 
gerund in — do." Arab. Grammar. 

'* l»,finitivus dicitur (fons) ; quod ab eo modus significandi, 
apud omnes linguas, proprie fluat etpromanet. 

Row. Inst. Heb. 

The Greek substantive form, or infinitive mood, is not only 
employed, to become the subject or object of another verb, but 
it is also made to perform all the functions of a noun, as well as 
of a participle or gerund. When in these characters, it is go- 
verned by prepositions, and joined to inflected articles, that 
render it expressive of all the cases, in which the noun, or 
verbal adjective are capable of being placed. 

The same inflections of the article serve to transform the ad- 
verb into an adjective, or the adjective into a substantive, by 
imparting to their radical meaning its own declinability. 

This employment of the Greek article to supply the want of 
declinability in the verbal substantive, is at the same time a 
proof and an illustration of the mode in which nouns and verbs 
were reciprocally transmuted into each other. It also shows 
that the progress of declinability began with the article, as its 
inflections, when preposed to the verbal form, are adequate to 
place it in every substantive relation. 

* The Greek medial voice, or rather the medial futures and 
aorists of its passive voice, which perform the functions of the 
reciprocal verb, are probably adopted in imitation of a similar 
disposition in the Sanscrit language. 

" The passive voice of transitive verbs is often used with an 
active, but an intransitive signification, where the effect pro- 
duced is in the agent, and does not pass over to another. 

Wilkins's Sans. Gr. 



75 



This form of expression is unknown to the 
English tongue. 

Participles are to the substantive form (or infi- 
nitive) of the verb, what adjectives are to nouns. 
They perforin the alternate functions of verb and 
adjective, being the mediate step towards ver- 
balization of the latter, as the infinitive mood is 
of the former ; and the verbal relation in which 
they stand to the infinitive, is the same with the 
adjective relation in which they stand to the 
noun. Thus: 

am -are (to) love .... am -or love, 
am -ans (one) loving . . . am -ans (a) loving 

Their construction in all original languages ap- 
pears to be the same, being formed from verbal 
roots combined with the respective participles of 
their declaratory.* 



In the Hebrew and its kindred tongues, of Western Asia, a 
like arrangement of the verb has place. " Ejus significatio est 
raodo activa, modo passiva ; ideoque verba activo-passiva di- 
cuntur; respondentque Latinorum verbis communibus, et 
Graecorum mediis." Inst. Hebraicse. 

* The Greek participles are all inflected by sis as or uv, 
which are the active ones of (E<») esse, or by the passive o-fxsvos, 
which was its passive present participle, as sao^svos was its fu_ 
ture one. 

This passive participular inflection in (jxsvos) was apparently 



76 



In the first of these functions they are always 

borrowed from the corresponding Sanscrit one in (manaii — ma- 
na — manum.) 

Thus— kryamanah kryamana kryamanum 

TVTTTO-fXeVOq TVTTTO-flEV^ TVlTTO-fXCVOV 

caes-us caes-a cacs-um. 

The Latin participles are similarly inflected ; viz. 

ama-ens or amans 
ama-iturus or amaturus 
ama-itum or amatum 
ama-enndus or amandus, 

from the radical ama, combined with the declaratory parti- 
ciples ; as their infinitive inflection is made by ire the original 
infinitive of the Latin declaratory. 

ama-ire or amare 

mone-ire or monere 

rege-ire or regere 

aud-ire or audire. 

The conjugation of each verb was evidently determined by 
the penultimate vowel of its radical. 

The Hebrew participle is a pure radical ; and all the inflec- 
tions of the Hebrew verb are made by merely cementing with 
its root the different personal pronouns. Its present expression 
is participular. " We are visiting/' or rather, 
" We-are visiting-ones." 

The Hebrew infinitive is a pure radical. 

The Persian and Arabic follow the same construction in their 1 
infinitive, which the former call (raasdan) the source, and in 
their participles. 

The Sanscrit present infinitive is formed by affixing (an) in 
the common form {iaavai) and (san) in the proper one (tvttt-iiv) 
to the verbal root; 



77 
governed by the subject or agent, like the other 

The passive present particle by the addition of (man). 

The reduplication of the radical syllabic consonant of tlie 
verb to express the completion or wholly elapsed period of its 
action, is common to all the languages of antiquity. 

The primary construction of verbs is further elucidated by 
that of their mandatory or imperative forms, which from the 
moment when a word became distinctly verbal, would be made 
in the shortest and most abrupt enunciation of it. It is to 
be observed, that this was the earliest allocutory form of ex- 
pression; for it was not till long after it had been necessary to 
command, " Beat (thou)/' that it became of use to declare to the 
person in presence of the one speaking, " Thou beatest." The 
real imperative therefore, namely a command given by the ora- 
tor to the person or persons he addresses, was most unques- 
tionably the earliest personal modulation of the verb. 

The Sanscrit imperative is radical in its second persons. 

The G reek is the simplest of all its inflections, 

TVTTT-e TV7TT-£T£ I 

And the Latin also. Ama, ama — te. 

The Saxon imperative is the pure radical. 

The Persian imperative is a mere enunciation of the verbal 
root. " Secunda persona sing, imperativi non raro fit nomen 
concretum, &c. Gladwin Persian Gram. 

v Imperativus (Hebraeus) coincidit cum infinitivo." Rowe. 

Thus the early development of verbal action is clearly traced 
through, 

1st. The action of beating, or infinitive mood, (to) beat ; 

2d. The agent of beating, or participle — one beating ; 

3d. The declaration of it, or third person — *one is beating 
— or one beats ; 

* Both in Greek and Latin, the pronouns of the third person 



78 



forms of verbal action* ; in the second by the 
substantive to which they are ascribed, like other 
adjective forms. Those participles .may be call- 
ed essentially active, which take up their verbal 
energy without any auxiliary ; 

" Hunc amantes, te quoque amant." 

" Rom am iturus ille — ." 

" Puerum amatura virgo — ." 

And those essentially passive and wholly adjec- 
tive in their meaning, which cannot be made to 
contribute to the expression of an actual energy 
without the aid of the declaratory verb. 

The Latin language affords a participle of a 
peculiar construction, called the gerund, which 

4th. The command to beat, or imperative — beat (thou). 

The personal modulations of the verb then became easy and 
natural. In fact they resulted almost necessarily from the in- 
vention of pronominal words, which being prefixed as subjects 
of the declaration of (beating), grew to be syllabically annexed 
to it, either through the medium of the declaratory, as in most 
languages, or directly, as in those of Western Asia, which ap- 
pear to have no determinate declaratory verb. 

* This rule applies to all inflected languages, and forms the 
peculiar character of the participle. 



(oi/, sui) are wanting of a nominative case, because it was super c 
fluous. 



79 



is not only susceptible of both an active and a 
passive signification, but can perform the func- 
tions of verb and adjective in the same phrase; 
and while the sense of the other active partici- 
ples is restricted to one of those characters, the 
gerund, like an hermaphrodite, combines them 
both.* 

* The gerund, in its verbal form, has always an active signifi- 
cation. Advertendo diligenter. 
Repetendo eadem. 
Metus hos offendendi, 
When combined with the declaratory verb, it has always a 
passive and adjective one. 

Praeceptor est consulendus. 
Fructus sunt colligendi. 
Quae reddenda erunt. 
When employed in its verbal form without prepositions, it 
governs an objective case, like other modes of the verb. 
" Otium scribendi literas. 
" Athenas erudiendi gratia missus." 
When employed with prepositions, its case is determined by 
that of the. noun, which is its object ; and then only it is ge- 
rundal, being both adjective and verb. 

The time of the verbal action of this participle seems to be 
the paulo post future, as it indicates that the action remains, 
and as it were, requires to be done. And its relation with the 
future in-rus appears analogous to that between the English 
shall and will, the former being in both cases afuturum impc- 
rativum, the last ^futurum narrans. 

The period assigned for the energy of both these futures may 
be delared to be either past, present, or to come, and is express- 
ed by all the tenses of the declaratory verb. 



80 



The necessity of creating in Latin analogy a 
particular form, under the denomination of supine, 
is by no means obvious. This form is the pas- 



It is from this participle, ratber than the present active one* 
tjiat the present participle of modern tongues is derived. Thus 
from ama-eundus, or amandus is amando, Ital. liebend, Germ. 
love-end, Anglo-Saxon and ancient English. From esse-eundus 
or essendus is essendo, It. seyend, Germ, be-end, An. Sax. 

The participles of the French declaratory form an exception, 
being adopted from the Latin or Italian stare, a verb which is 
not found uncompounded in that language.* 

Thus from starts, Lat. is stante, or istante, Ital. whence estant 
old, and etant modern French. 

In like manner, from status is stato or istato, whence este or 
etc. 

So from aim-ttant is aimant, and from aim-ete is aime. 

The gerund does not appear to have been employed in any 
language anterior to the Latin. 

" Pro gerundiis et supinis usurpantur Graeci infinitivum cum 
articulo, vel sine articulo." 



* (I stand,) can only be expressed in French by a circumlo- 
cution (Je metiens debout). It is a remarkable fact, that in 
every language, where a transitive or neuter verb has been taken 
up to be employed in an auxiliary or inflective manner, such 
verb is thenceforward withdrawn as it were, out of the verbal 
circulation, and is no longer to be met with in an independent 
form. This fact shows that most eveu of the apparently capri- 
cious anomalies of language, arjse out of a studious care to 
prevent confusion. 



81 



sive participle substantiated into a noun of 
the fourth declension. When employed with 
a verb, it is put in the accusative case, the prepo- 
sition (ad) being understood, as " eo (ad) cubi- 
tum ;" " prodeamus (ad) ambulatnm ;" " Ibit 
(ad) venatum ;". otherwise in the ablative, as " In- 
jussu parentum abiit." *1 Haud facile factuhoc." 
" Turpe est dictu." u Conatu difficillimum."* 

The French language offers examples of the 
same subs tan tization of participles ; thus " Je vais 
a mon git? " A Vinsgu de ses parents." 

Sometimes the participle is substituted for the 
gerund, or rather perhaps for the infinitive mood : 
as Eo mutatum ~\ 

instead of . . . Eo (ad) mutandum j> crepidas. 
or rather ... Eo mutare J 

" Ex infinitivo Hebraico sunt quatuor quasi-gerundia prefixis 
praepositionibus inseparabilibus in, sicut, ad, de, &c. 

The Sanscrit has no gerundial arrangement. 

In the impersonal expression of the gerund (eundum) it is 
a future substantive form, as (itum) is a past, and (ire) a pre- 
sent one; and is made the subject of the declaratory verb: 
" Eundum est mihi ;" " non vi vincendum est." 

* Most nouns which are predicated back from verbs, and ex- 
press action, energy or violence, are of the fourth declension ; 
£s motus, cursus, saltus, luctus, venatus, conatus, &c. 



82 



The remarks made in the first part of this essay 
on the construction of English adverbs, apply 
with almost equal correctness to the Latin ones. 
Many of these are compounds, consisting of two 
or more words syllabically sealed to each other, 
as sci-licet, fors-it-an, vel-ut, qua-re. Others are 
adjectives, imperatives, or ablative cases of nouns, 
as potius, age-dum, forte, modo, et cet. Not un- 
frequently they are abbreviations, as vix from 
vicinus, imo from intimo, tarn from talis quant, cur 
from qua re, dum from datum, sic from scilicet, and 
sinistrorsum for sinistro versum* 

Many adverbs differ from adjectives only in a 
peculiar set of terminations, which seem to merit 
a place in grammar, as the adverbial inflections. 
Such are egregi-e, tot-ies, pari-ter, sigillat-im. 

Similar forms of adverbial inflection are to be 
found in all modern languages ; and as almost 
every word so determined by its final syllable 
into an adverbial 'form, is susceptible of an ad- 



* Many adverb? are formed from colloquial abridgments of 
phrases ; and an attention to them might perhaps assist in de- 
termining the familiar pronunciation of the dead languages ; as 
hodie from lwc die ; hesterne from externo (pronounced estern*) 
die : and the like. 



83 



jective one, by a distinct appropriate inflection 
(or as in English by remaining uninflected) we are 
enabled to retrace in the actual construction of 
language, the same analogy that has been already 
observed in its theory; namely, that adjective 
and adverbial words, ascriptive of properties to 
other words, are both resolvable into the common 
genus of modes. 

Though these adverbials may all ultimately be 
resolved into the combination of two distinct 
words, it has been shown that such combination is 
the ultimate nature of all grammatical inflection 
whatsoever.* 

The very few Latin adverbs which are not re- 
solvable, are either mere indices, and interjective 
forms, or else are most likely borrowed from 
other collateral idioms. f 

Conjunctions, as has been already said, are the 



* The principal adverbial termination in Italian is ( — mente), 
whence in French ( — ment.) This is probably borrowed from 
the hemantic constructions of substantives; increnfentum, ab 
increo. The German adverbs are formed by the annexation of 
certain adjective words, of which the greatest part of our Eng- 
lish adverbial terminations are merely an abridgment. 

t Such are perhaps eras duntaxat, ceu 3 et cetera. 



84 



grammatical signs of postulates, as and, if, but, et 
cetera. And this analogy, however fanciful it 
may at first appear, will be found the closer, the 
further it is pursued. They are in Latin as in 
English, short and monosyllabic abridgments of 
other words, as et, jam, que (from aeque), ac (from 
the same), si (from sit), nee (from neque), cum, 
xel, and others : for etiam (i. e. et-jam), si-ve, pro- 
in-de, et-en-im, nisi, and others similar, are com- 
pound words, or phrases. 

As the Italian and French conjunctions are 
imitative for the most part of the Latin, so our 
English ones are derived from the German.* 

Prepositions are the auxiliaries of nouns, as 
auxiliaries are the prepositions of verbs ; and 
this analogy, which we have ventured to apply to 
English construction, will be found to hold good 
in all languages, in such proportion as these two 
classes of words may be employed in them under 
a separate form. Auxiliaries only become inflec- 
tible by their combination with pronouns, and 

* Andy so, when, yet, though ; are derived from und, so, 
wenn, jetzt fpron. yetzt), dock ( pron. doh' ). But in like man- 
ner from (butan Sax.) outside or excepted; whether (i. e. when 
either) from weder (i. e. wenn ieder) ; either, from entweder ; 
likewise from gleichweise. 



85 



prepositions are also inflected by a syllabic union 
with the pronominal article. And if our English 
nouns and consequently adjectives, are not inflec- 
tible, from the same cause our verbs are very 
slightly so; while in other languages, whose 
verbal system is extensively varied by the syl- 
labic combination of their auxiliary with the in- 
dependent verbs, that of their nouns is not less 
so, by the annexation to them of their inflected 
particles. # 

The exclusion from the system of organized 
language, that has been pronounced in the first 
part of this essay, against those indefinite and al- 
most inarticulate sounds called interjections, is 
fully justified by an inquiry into their universal 
character. In this inquiry the first thing to be 
remarked, is their extreme similitude through all 
tongues ; a similitude which alone suffices to 
prove they are not to be numbered as a part of 
the ratiocinative language of men. They are the 
cries of nature ; and from organs formed alike, 
the inarticulate bursts of feeling will always be 
similar. 

* The Sanscrit noun has eight distinctly inflected cases. 

The German or Saxon language, which is the foster-mother 
of our own, has its nouns and adjectives subjected to a very 
complicated system of declinability, while its verbs are scarcely 
less simple in their construction than our own. 



86 



Nevertheless, though not words, yet it was out 
of such sounds, that words at tirst arose. Indi- 
cative and imitative cries, repeated on like occa- 
sions, and adopted by common consent, gradually 
became the oral signs of things. 

It is also worthy of remark, that many of Ihese 
exclamations, though purely interjective at first, 
and almost unmeaning, except accompanied by 
appropriate gesticulations, have in their progress 
and translation from one tongue to another, grown 
into nouns without changing their form. 

* 

Thus Ovcu ! Vae (victis !) guai ! Weh ! Woe ! is 
a declinable noun, as well as an interjection, both 
in German and in English. 



PART III 



OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, AND OF 
ALPHABETIC CHARACTER. 



The necessity of expressing wants and impart- 
ing events called for the invention of oral signs, 
which should be understood by all. And these 
sounds were at first, there is no doubt, imitative 
of those produced by the beings or movements 
they were meant to announce. They formed a 
species of vocal hieroglyphics, and bore towards 
their prototypes the same analogy as does picture 
writing. 

cujus recinet jocosa 

Nomen imago? 

Thus far, and no farther is language an imita- 
tive art. And though the analogies of nature are 
still maintained in the development of its theory, 
yet from the moment when by convention men 
came to determine that certain sounds (or words) 
should be understood to express, not only the in- 
dividual or species whose voice or action they 
aped, but all others which partook with that ob- 



88 



ject some certain property; e.g: that the same 
sound which mocked the roar of a lion, should 
announce every other animal which, like the lion, 
had four legs, a large body, and a rapid course ; 
or that the sonorous term thalassa, which paints 
to the ear the wild tumult of the breaking surges, 
should bespeak alike the summer ocean, when 
its smooth bosom reflects all the hues of heaven, 
from that moment language became artificial. 

Language is the means of transmitting ideas, 
but not the substitute for them. Words are not 
thoughts, although from imperfection of the me- 
morial faculty we are compelled to employ them 
as an index to our ideas of things, just as we em- 
ploy letters as an index to our idea of words. 
But the sound of words no more resembles the 
essence of thought, than algebraic signs do the 
truths of mathematics. They are memorial scaf- 
foldings only.* 

« 

* " Knowledge, opinion and prejudice are infused into the 
blind through the ear ; and when they are accustomed to use 
the mechanism of language, they learn the use of words, as 
signs of things unknown, and speak with correctness and pro- 
priety on subjects where they may have no ideas. ... If he" 
(a certain philosophical character born deaf and dumb) " were, 
to reason on the theory of sounds, there appears no grounds for 
expecting that he might not employ his words with as much ex- 
actness as Saunderson displayed in the employment of algebraic 



89 



A child, a savage, views a finished painting, 
and recognizes its resemblance to that nature his 
eye has transmitted a passive impression of. A 
mind somewhat more cultivated, reads in a linear 
engraving, not the forms only, but the tints, the 
surfaces of the same picture, and his imagination 
supplies the defects of art with added glow. A 
practical designer sees in the simple outline of a 
sketch, all the effect that its completion may be 
made to produce. To a mind experienced in the 
contemplation of nature, and familiar with the 
terms under which her appearances are conveyed, 
neither colours, shades nor outline are wanted. 
An animated verbal delineation suffices to trans- 
mit to him, not the picture itself, but the index, 
by the aid of which he combines to himself a 
copy more or less accurate. 

But the painter employed neither words, lines, 
shades nor colours in the prototype his intellect 
had formed or combined. He had need of signs 
or imitation, only when he wished to express and 
convey it to others. 

signs." ..." The information conveyed by the ear respecting 
the conditions of outward objects is comparatively small. But 
its great importance consists in being the organ which renders 
it possible to use a conventional language on an extensive scale, 
and under all circumstances. 

See Edinburg Rev. Nov. 1812. p. 469. 
H 



90 



Grammar is not reasoning, anymore than orga- 
nization is thought, or letters sounds. Nor can 
it be too often repeated, that what is called trans- 
mitting our ideas, only means awaking corres- 
pondent ideas in the minds of others. Words 
are the instruments employed for this purpose ; 
words understood by all ; that is, to which all are 
agreed to ascribe the same meaning. We can no 
more transmit our ideas, than we can transfuse 
our blood, or our lives; but we enounce them 
through the medium of sounds and pictures, or 
by the aid of words and letters, which are by 
common assent the types of them; and the in- 
spection of these types recalls, like an index, the 
kindred ideas to remembrance. 

Neither does there exist any analogy between 
thought and mechanism, reason and movement, 
although for the expression of every reflective or 
abstract idea, every intellectual reasoning, and 
all purely mental feeling, we are obliged to have 
recourse to various combinations of the simple 
terms which were in their first adoption expres- 
sive of material forms and movements. We have 
only these means of communicating our thoughts, 
nor is any better wanting, as whatever expression 
is adequate to make my thoughts and feelings ac- 
curately known to another, cannot be further im- 
proved. Li therefore the terms which imply such 



91 



analogies are used, it is because some analogy, real 
or fancied, is indispensable to the efficiency of lan- 
guage, which, from the moment when it ceased 
to be picturesque, only grew iuto grammar 
through the relations that subsisted among the 
meanings of its simple sounds. But such analo- 
gies are not in the essence of our thoughts, nor 
does man think in words any more than in letters, 
though he employs words to reason, (as he does 
cyphers to calculate,) because the limited memo- 
rial capacity of the mind renders such substitu- 
tions necessary, not to conceive, but to compare* 

Words are implements, and grammar a ma- 
chine. Expression or phrase is the index of 
reasoning, as words are the index of ideas, letters 
of sounds, and cyphers of letters. 

Nevertheless, the improvement of speech held 

* It has been tenaciously insisted on, that we necessarily think 
in words. Will it then be denied that the deaf and dumb think 
at all] Or if it be pretended that the pupils of a Braid wood, or 
an Abbe Sicard, are taught a mental substitution of the graphic 
forms for the sounds of language, and that they thus think and 
reason alphabetically, what is to become of those yet more un- 
fortunate beings, who are deprived of the advantages of such 
instruction ? Are we for the sake of an hypothesis, to deny 
them the faculty of thinking, while their gestures evince so often 
the greatest acuteness of feeling, and perception, and their ac- 
tions bespeak a marvellous degree of combination and sagacity 1 



92 



regular pace with the development of intellect* 
of which it is both the organ and the measure, 
being at the same time the record of past dis- 
coveries, and the formula for extending new ones. 
Its general analogies therefore kept true to na- 
ture, and hence the great connection of grammar 
with science. 

The manner in which the principal parts of 
speech are generated in succession out of the in- 
creasing wants and ideas of society, has been de- 
duced in the preceding pages. From the mo- 
ment, when the ideas of men expanded be- 
yond the narrow bounds of savage necessity, they 
soon outran the possibility of imitative expres- 
sion, and* chance or caprice, or the combination 
and dissection of their earlier denominations, fur- 
nished materials for their new ones. And when 
it is considered, that the simplest and first ideas 
are those of difference or dissimilitude, we must 
conceive that the need of distinct terms would 
have increased in a very rapid ratio. Not only 
things, but movements were to have a title, and 
hence it arose that the same sounds were often 
employed to point out an object, and the most 
customary action of that object ;* and in other 

* Names of this last description are very numerous ; they are 
usually called hemantic words. 



93 



cases to express both an action, and the subject 
that was most peculiarly addicted to it. 

In the same manner were generated words as- 
criptive of abstract qualities, namely, adjectives 
and adverbs, from the juxtaposition to nouns and 
verbs, of others, in which these qualities formed 
the most marking trait. 

Hitherto all words were radical or indeclinable, 
and human speech had, correctly speaking, no 
parts ; the relation of sounds to each other, or 
rather of the ideas which they enounced, being in- 
dicated by juxtaposition, gesture, or by the pau- 
city of their combinations, which rendered error 
little to be apprehended. 

The progress of discovery, and the mutilation 
of ideas, could under such rude forms have made 
very small advancement. But the human mind, 
more curious and inventive, as it became more 
instructed, found means to break its bounds, by 
contriving successively a set of sounds to express 
all those relations. These sounds, which we term 
auxiliaries, include the preposition, pronominal 
article, the conjunction, and the declaratory 
verb.* All these were at the first simple and in- 

* The pronominal article is to the noun, what the substan- 



94 



declinable, like the primary forms of speech, and 
some of them have remained so in all languages, 
to the present day ; but others have, by combina- 
tion with each other, not only become flexible 
themselves, but transmitted their flexibility to the 
heretofore indeclinable elements of discourse. 

Verbal words were probably the first which be- 
came so, # and are still in our own, as well as in 
some other cultivated languages, the only ones 
that have attained any considerable degree of 
flexibility. 

The first grand distinction of verbal action is in- 
to its periods, which the analogy of nature divides, 
into the past, the present and the future. These 
three were, doubtless, the earliest inflections of the 
declaratory, and other auxiliary verbs ; those in- 



tive termination or prefixed sign of activity, is to the verb. 
And tbere exists a strong analogy between the auxiliary verb 
and the preposition, the one being as indispensable in order to 
express the bearing or influence of each noun, as the other to 
declare the mode and direction of activity of each verb. It is 
probable they were coeval, as well in their origin, as in their 
subsequent modulations. 

* This fact is in strict conformity with the progress of intel- 
lect. Verbs being the oral expressions of action and movement, 
would be the first forms of speech to invoke corresponding 
changes of inflection. 



95 



dicative of person and plurality being much less 
necessary, as the governing pronoun was sufficient 
to assert its own action, without any correspon- 
dent inflection. These personal inflections were 
formed, in all original languages, by combining 
with the auxiliary the different personal pro- 
nouns,* in order to dispense with* their separate 
employment: or else by joining the pronouns 
themselves syllabically to the verbal root, where 

* Number, as a technical terra, if it has any grammatical 
meaning, signifies a certain varied inflection of the same word. 
We, therefore, is not the plural of /, nor ye of thou, either in a 
metaphysical or a grammatical sense. Identity is no more sus- 
ceptible of multiplication than unity. If we were the plural of 
/, it must mean " two or more myselfs," which is absurd. We 
can only signify two or more persons, one of whom is the speaker, 
but not two or more times the speaker himself. 

It is strange this unphilosophical confusion should have been 
persevered in, through all grammatical codes, in defiance both of 
common sense, and the practice of speech itself. For in scarcely 
any language, ancient or modern, is there any radical identity to 
be found between the first and second singular pronouns and 
their pretended plurals; and the universality of this fact, at the 
same time that it reconciles the practical formation of speech 
with the reason of things, renders the oversight of it less par- 
donable in grammarians. 

There is just as much reason to make people the plural of 
a man, or a regiment the plural of a soldier, as to pretend that 
the singular and plural personal pronouns of English, Saxon, 
Celtic, Latin, Greek, Persian, Malay, &c. are only numerical 
inflections of each other. 



96 



a determinate declaratory verb, as in the Ian* 
guages of Western Asia, was wanting. 

Thus far there existed no other verbs than aux- 
iliaries. The words which were intended to ex- 
press movement, and action, could only have that 
meaning ascribed to them arbitrarily, and one by 
one, as they bore no general sign of verbality, 
which might distinguish them from names or ad- 
jectives, with which they were in a great many 
instances identified. 

The necessity of such distinction, was the first 
that suggested itself, and along with it its remedy, 
which was an added inflection generally decla- 
ratory of activity or verbal ity, as rvnl-w, schlag- 
en, caed-ere ; and here we have the first element of 
the verb. 

Equally indispensable with the verbal inflec- 
tion, which declares the active essence of the verb, 
is the impersonal enunciation of its actual energy, 
or its' radical form. And till the invention of aux- 
iliary verbs, and their subsequent amalgamation 
jnore or less complete with the primary ones, the 
whole inflectibility of the latter was limited to 
these two forms. # 

* In the infancy of speech it remained a long time useless to 



97 



Hitherto the development of language, walking- 
hand in hand with that of the human intellect, 
had kept close to the analogies of nature. The 
same wants or ideas provoked the same oral ex- 
pression of them, and in order to speak a language, 
no more was needful than to feel and to remem- 
ber. Habit identified the denomination, simple 
and monosyllabic for the most part, with the ob- 
ject itself, and thought was speech. 

This is probably the term at which the mind 
of man, secluded by barriers of ocean, and desert, 
from the provocation of new desires, and the gra- 
tification of further curiosity, would become and 
remain stationary for indefinite ages, as well in 
language as in science. Such is the state in 
which those insularies were found, whom modern 
circumnavigation has made us first acquainted 
with. At the period of their respective discovery, 
they cannot under any hypothesis be supposed to 
have been detected in a stage of progressive im- 
provement. Their minds had already since a pe- 
riod to which conjecture herself would be baffled 
in assigning a date, attained all the expansion of 
which insulated ephemeral man is capable, unless 

declare the perpetration of an action, either by the speaker him- 
self, or by the individual whom he addresses. Words were 
wanted only in order to assert it of a third and absent agent. 



98 



invention or instruction furnish him with that mo 
mentous instrument of human improvement, that 
enables us to fix the present, and recall the past, 
and by their collation, to anticipate the future. 

But under other circumstances the multiplica- 
tion of ideas soon became so rapid, as to exceed 
the power of simple sounds for their due enunci- 
ation. New relations were each moment dis- 
covered ; new combinations and propositions that 
could only be expressed by compound or arbi- 
trarily adopted terms. The growing intercourse 
with foreign tribes, in proportion as the increas- 
ing masses of continental population spread into 
contact with each other, and the mutuations of 
speech arising from traffic or introduced through 
the affiliation of strangers, nay, even the rude col- 
lisions of war and conquest, led to the adoption 
into each tongue of numerous anomalies both in 
words, accent and constructions. 

Time grew valuable, as desires and occupations 
became more earnest and numerous, The deep- 
ening passions of mankind invoked a more laconic 
vehemence of style. Orators wished to persuade, 
and rapidity as well as force of expression, were 
necessary to influence the multitude. 

For this purpose, the ministerial monosyllables 



99 



were, if the term be allowed, hermetically annexed 
to tlieir principal parts of speech. The prono- 
minal article, uniting with the different preposi- 
tions, formed itself into cases. These again, com- 
bining with the noun, transferred to it their de- 
clinability, and ceased to be indispensable in a 
separate form. The declaratory became first in- 
flected by its syllabic union with the personal pro- 
nouns,* and then imparted its own inflections to 
the immovable root of the verb ; thus becoming, 
in its servile capacity, superfluous. The words 

* The Hebrew pronouns of the 2d and 3d persons being 
sexual, have imparted the same sexual inflection to the 2d and 
and 3d persons of their verbs. 

The Sanscrit verbs have no generic inflections, while those of 
the Hindostanee (or modern Sanscrit) possess them in common 
with all the dialects of Western Asia. This is therefore a more 
recent refinement, of which, whether it be understood to have 
been borrow* d by the Chaldeans from the latter language of In- 
dia, or that the tongue of Hindustan adopted it in imitation of 
the dialects of Western Asia, such adoptions must have taken 
place at a period subsequent to the degeneration of Sanscrit into 
Bengalee. 

On the other hand, the dual number, both in nouns and verbs, 
is possessed in common by the Sanscrit, the Arabic and its 
branches, and the Greek, and is not found in Hindostanee nor 
in any modern tongue. The combination of these two facts 
renders it probable that as the Western Asiatic languages bor- 
rowed their dual inflection from the Sanscrit, the Arabic intru- 
ders imparted in return the generic one to the modernized Hin- 
dostanee. 



100 



expressive of sex, lent themselves to the terminal 
syllable of the noun to which they were ascribed. 
The noun in turn set its own sexual and casual 
marks on the adjective, to which it had claim. 
The independent words that expressed propor- 
tion or degree, allowed themselves to be terminally 
annexed to other adjectives, and thus were formed 
comparative inflections. 

This progress towards artificial brevity appears 
common to every tongue. It is a necessary result 
of the development of the human mind, and the 
nature of speech ; and it affords a sufficient refu- 
tation of the opinion of those who pretend that 
man thinks in words. For if words were ideas, 
their enunciation would be as constant as them- 
selves, and two series of sounds would never be 
used to express the same meaning.* Words are 
mere signals, susceptible like those^ of the tele- 
graph, of improvement and abbreviation. 

To account for the various degrees of artificiality 
which the mechanism of different languages pre- 
sents, we are furnished, both by record and ana- 
logy, with a theorem, which will be found on ex- 
amination to be universally true. 

* Still less would terms expressive of the ideas imparted by 
one sense, be made use of, to paint those produced by another. 



101 



In whatever stage of improvement the intro- 
duction of letters into vernacular use, found each 
oral language, there they fixed, and rendered 
it stationary. We are not in possession' of a sin- 
gle written document, that exhibits any primary 
language in a rude uninflected form, of which we 
have works composed after the period of its refine- 
ment and organization. The tongue of Hesiod is 
that of Demosthenes ; Plautus and Boethius wrote 
in the same Latin, and the earliest literary monu- 
ments of Germany differ very little from the speech 
of modern times. It may be added, that the me- 
morial poesies of Ossian and Carolan, are recited 
in the Celtic dialects of the present day. No 
more ancient author is quoted, none referred to 
in any of these tongues, who wrote in a language 
anterior to the existing one of his compatriots. 
The first introduction of letters served to fix and 
identify each tongue : and after that monument 
was once raised, it became as difficult as it would 
have been useless, to impose any organic changes 
on the speech of a whole people.* 

* The Malay tongue is an example of this truth. All the parts 
of speech in Malayan are indeclinable, or rather undeclined. The 
assertion of plurality is either understood from the context, ex- 
pressed by a numerical adjective word, or else made by a redu- 
plication. The sexes are invariably indicated by separate epi- 
thets. The three natural tenses or periods of action, are ex- 
pressed by the aid of auxiliary ^erbal words, which are not en- 



102 



This constitution of the language into a perma- 
nent form by the aid of letters facilitated and 

titled to be called verbs ; for when there is no inflectibility, 
language cannot be said to have any parts. The enunciation 
of the governing pronoun alone, determines, in like manner, 
without any inflection, the personal energy of the verb. 

The Arabic alphabet has been introduced at a late period by 
the conquering Mussulman, and is become the adopted cha- 
racter, employed in all the regions where this language is spo- 
ken, to express the meaning of its absolutely uninfected 
sounds. A speech simple and unorganized, not less rude than 
the dialects of those smaller islands in the Indian ocean, since 
discovered by modern circumnavigators, which appear to have 
been at some period dismembered from its larger ones, of Java, 
and Borneo, where this tongue prevails, and still possessing 
much in common with those different dialects, has been arrested 
and rendered permanent, by the intrusion of lettered strangers, 
who have consigned its rude vocabulary to the register of an al- 
ready perfected alphabet. Thus the instrument by whose 
means a new theology was imparted, and arts, refinements, and 
technical sciences introduced, that were unthought of before, 
has presented the most effectual bar to any further improve- 
ments in the tongue. 

The Manks dialect of Celtic, which is considered to be the 
purest existing modification of that venerable language,* is 
scarcely more artificial than the Malay. Its only inflected ver- 
bal form is the declaratory. The cases of its nouns are formed 



* " A people that alone in the great revolutions of ages, have 
preserved the government, the laws, the monuments, and the 
language of the ancient Druids. 

Kelly's Grammar of the Manks Tongue. 



103 



prompted an inquiry into its elements, and gram- 
mar became the object of serious study. 

But previous to an inquiry into the influence 



in a very peculiar manner. Their terminations do not undergo 
any change except that of plurality, which is commonly formed 
by the addition of (r) or (er) to the singular ; but the respective 
prepositions are combined into one, with the first syllable of the 
root, and all the cognate letters of each consonant are erilployed 
successively instead of the primitive one, in the formation of its 
different cases. Yet these substitutions do not appear essen- 
tial to the construction of the cases, but rather to be arbitrarily 
introduced as an euphonic ornament.* 



* It is impossible not to be struck with the great number of 
Latin roots that are contained in this pure dialect of the Celtic. 
The origin of these roots cannot be ascribed to adoption on 
the introduction through the missionaries, of Latin lore ; for 
they are found abundantly in the synonimes of such things 
which would of necessity have a name bestowed on them in the 
earliest periods of human intercourse. The numbers of these 
Latin roots will be found greatly extended, when allowance is 
made for arbitrary initial substitutions of the cognate conso- 
nants for each other. This primeval tongue seems to exhibit 
an early specimen of that Milesian language of which the Ladin 
or Aromansch, yet spoken in certain districts of the Valteliiie, 
are more modulated forms, while its state of utmost refinement 
is exhibited in the Latin. 

It cannot be for a moment supposed, that the following coin- 
cident etymologies, taken almost at hazard, from the Manksand 



104 



which the pursuit of grammatical science may 
have had ou the language, taste, or knowledge 
of a people, it will be useful to pause, and endea- 
vour to retrace the origin of written speech. In 
the course of this inquiry on a subject, which ap- 
pears to have been wrapped in a veil of needless, 
and perhaps affected mystery, some conclusions 
will be brought forward with the more deference, 



Erse dialects of Celtic with the Latin, and, in a few instances, 
the Greek, have been either fortuitous or biblical. 



a man 


fer 


vir 


salt 


sellan 


sel 


stars 


seleni 


stellae 


a woman 


mooe 


mulier 


a beast 


beheug 


bestia 




styern 


astra 


father 
mother 


aher 
moir 


pater 
mater 


a bird 
a fish 


yahn 
piesk 


avis 
piscis 


great 


more 
mooar 


major 


brother 


braur 


frater 


thunder 


tornog 


tonitru 


a friend 


compa- 


comes 


sister 


shyr 


soror 


a rock 


skellig 


scopulum 




nach 








head 


kione 


kephalon 


who 


quoi 


qui quis 


air 


aear 


aii- 


eye 


ooil 


oculus 


light 


laou 


lux lucis 


water 


usque 


aqua 


mouth 


becal 




to sing 


oran 


orare 


afield 


magher 


ager 


heart 


ere 


cor 


to know 


gnomed 


gnothein 


a cliff 


slieav 


clivis 


foot 


puss 


pes 


true 


gwir 


verus 


lake 


loch 


lacus 


I 


J e g (yeg) 


ego 




verin 




a spring 


Uoung 


tons 


me 


meg 


me 


a king 


ree 


rex 


morning 


mattinacli 


matutine 


thou 


du 


tu 


and 


og. och 


ac 


night 


nock 


nox 


y e 


tusse 


vos 


likewise 


ogus 


aeque 


to cover 


teach 


tegere 


God 


Je (Yee) 


Deus 


a name 


anym 


onoma 


house 


thig 


tectum 


mind 


annym 


animus 




or nomen 


horse 


agh 
coba 


equus 
caballus 


yes 


ta 
neah 


ita 
nee 


short 
one 


gurrit 
un 


curtus 
unus 




tarroo 


taurus 


no 


n y 


ne 


two 


daa 


duo 


cow 


booa 


bos* 


word 


fockle 


vox 


three 


tree 


tres 


tree 


dru 


dry as 


dead 


marroo 


mortnus 


four 


kaer 


quatnor 






folius 


sword 


gliewe 


gladius 


five 


queig 


quinque 


leaves 


phyllin 


a phyllos 


white 


gial 


albus 


six 


shea 


sex 


snake 


apiast 


ophis 








nothing 


nule 


nil 


sheep 


keyrrey 


pecores 















* It would not perhaps be indulging a whimsical conjecture, to suppose that we 
arrive here at the true source and origin of Irish bulls. Assuredly every Irish cow K 
a bull, if every Irish bull be not a cow ! 



105 



as the narrow limits of an Essay will not permit 
them to be accompanied by all those illustrations 
that have brought conviction to the mind of the 
author. 



Letters are not mors the creature of artifice 
than is speech. Both rose alike out of the ge- 
neralizing powers of the human intellect operating 
on the communications of two different organs of 
sense.* But so long as all language was collo- 
quial, it remained much easier to name than to 
delineate, and to imitate sound, accompanied per- 
haps by gesticulation, than to depict forms and 
colours. There was therefore no need to invoke 
the aid of another sense, in order to create any 
more artful representation; and permanent me- 
morial was useless, as long as the wants and socie- 
ties of mankind were limited to the present circle, 
and the passing hour. 

* It is however worthy of remark, that oral and graphical 
language, from the moment when each takes its departure from 
the point of mimic imitation, follow a course directly opposed 
to each other, and proceed' in an inverse ratio. It is only in 
becoming more complex and artificial, that the descriptive 
power of sounds extends, and generalizes itself. Graphical ex- 
pression, on the other hand, is only to be improved by gradually 
eliminating, and simplifying while it generalizes, the prolix forms 
of what at first was picture-writing. . 

I 



106 



But this state of undiscerniflg, and almost un- 
conscious enjoyment was probably of short dura- 
tion. It hutd its term when the absolutely spon- 
taneous productions of the earth ceased to supply 
in abundance all the wants of men. The moment 
it became necessary to search, to hunt or toil for 
food, to fabricate instruments of chase or tillage, 
the ideas were generated of property and exclu- 
sion. Conventions were entered into, boundaries 
fixed, and rude memorials set up, to bear witness 
of the permanency of treaties, to commemorate the 
triumphs of a people, and often to perpetuate the 
funebral expression of its regrets. And as the re- 
lations both friendly and hostile of the masses of 
mankind extended and multiplied, the transmis- 
sion of intelligence or command to those at a dis- 
tance, called for representations of a more appro- 
priate kind. The mere existeuce of a monument 
was sufficient in the first instance to recall to me- 
mory all the stipulations, with which it was tradi- 
tionally associated ; but to impart new ideas to the 
absent or to the stranger, the pasygraphic part of 
picture intercourse, became indispensable; and 
by a process of abridgement and simplification 
of natural forms, the progress of which was in 
inverse ratio to the gradual multiplication of 
speech,* it may be traced into those forms which 

* In proportion to the multiplication of ideas, and the need 



107 



being become the general expression of all the 
meanings of similar sounds, present us with the 
elements of letters. 

The picture of an object, or rather that picture 
reduced and simplified into an hyeroglyphic, 
form, # became also the graphical expression of 
other objects, whose names bore an auricular re- 
semblance to that of the first. It required no 
great effort of ingenuity or abstraction to conceive 
that similar sounds might be represented by the 
same character, which had already served for one 
of them ; as will be obvious when we consider, 
that this character was already rendered artificial 
by a degree of simplification, which had left all 
individual or generic resemblance behind. At 

of their vocal expression, numerous modifications were required 
in order to apply the same radical sounds to express different 
ideas. But when these multiplied ideas came to require a 
graphical enunciation, where rapidity of description was the 
only means, as well as only end of its improvement, it was ne- 
cessary to make the same figure represent as many similar 
sounds as possible. 

* By the term hieroglyphic is here understood the mere reduc- 
tion of imitated forms, without any reference to the metaphorical 
or mysterious character in which they were sometimes used, and 
which the term implies. It may however be observed, that this 
metaphorical use of them affords a proof, how soon the abstractive 
powers of the human intellect surpassed its organic means for 
the direct enunciation of the ideas, to which they gave birth. 



103 



the same time the earliest words being monosyl- 
labic, even where they were not produced by a 
single articulation, this generalization of meaning 
became the more easy and natural.* 

* The construction of that most venerable monument of hu- 
man genius, the Sanscrit alphabet, appears to be founded orf 
this principle. The more minute distinctions of sound which 
varied the different monosyllables that were enounced under 
one and the same radical articulation, were marked by slight dif- 
ferences of form, which distinguishing the sense, distinguished 
the sound also ; and these differences, from expressing at first, 
the individual object they were meant to point out by a faintly 
imitative graphical distinction, acquired an independent oral 
sense and denomination, as vowels. 

The Sanscrit characters are classed, in form, as well as in se- 
ries, nearly as follows : 

a i u e 

aa li uu ee 



o 






au 






ka ta pa ba ga sa ja la nga 


ma 


va ra 


kha taa pha bha gha saa jha nya 




ri 


cha tha sua naa 




lri 


ch-ha thaa na 







da 

dha' 
It is only from this graphical resemblance of the earliest cha- 
racters to the particular object, each was at first intended to ex- 
press, that we can explain the application to them, which in cer- 
tain languages of antiquity has still been preserved, of the 
names of animated or material objects, to which in their sim- 
plified and literal form, they bear no longer the faintest resem- 
blance. The association would otherwise be not only artificial 



109 

From the syllabic expression of these charao 
ters to that of simple articulated sound, the tran- 

but contradictory, and therefore, instead of assisting the memory, 
would confound it. For though the word circle is perhaps ar- 
bitrarily made to express a figure of a certain form, and the word 
cube a solid of another, there is nothing in evidence to contra- 
dict the propriety of these substitutions ; but to say that such a 
letter meant a camel, and such another the roof of a house, while 
those objects were present in reality to the eye, and gave the 
lie to all pretence of similitude, would only confuse, instead of 
aiding the memorial faculty. Even infants are only taught to 
associate the names of letters with some object of sense, in order 
to impress them on the memory, by depicting them with such 
additions, as shall create a resemblance they do not really pos- 
sess. 

It is a confirmation of these remarks to add that in those lan- 
guages where a figured denomination of the alphabetic charac- 
ters is yet extant, a real resemblance still remains between the 
forms and the names of some few of them, although in the 
greater part of their letters all traces of such resemblance is 
wholly obliterated. 

The want of vowel forms in certain languages, furnishes an- 
other proof that the figures which were at first pictures, then 
verbal signs, and afterwards syllabic ones, became finally the 
marks of simple articulation, or letters. At a subsequent pe- 
riod to the first construction or introduction of graphical lan- 
guage, when the great increase of names and words no longer 
permitted each race to confine itself to the use of such sounds, 
or combinations of sounds only, whose difference from each 
pther, was sufficiently marked to preclude the chance of am- 
biguity or mistake, what are called vowel points were invented 
to mark these minuter distinctions. Till that time the consonant 
signs, as in modern stenography, served to express the whole 



110 
sition was yet more simple. To avoid the ardu 



word. The pictural figure of an (aleph) was become (a), that 
of a (resh) (r), and of a tzaddc (tz), and, joined together, they 
expressed aretz; b r d, in like manner, was bered, gg, gog and 
d g n dagon. 

Vowels are a part of the system wholly conventional, and 
unquestionably the latest improvement of letters. They form 
as it were an artificial cement, which fills up the interstices and 
gives mass and continuity to accumulative sounds. 

Nevertheless, in those languages where punctuation alone still 
marks the place of the intermediate vowels, yet certain vocal 
sounds which often form the radical or initial of words, require 
a complete graphical form, as well as the consonants ; but such 
are not ligative sounds. They are, like the consonants, letters 
of pictural origin, and it will be found that not only in Hebrew, 
but in Sanscrit, it requires the aid of separate punctuation, to as- 
sign to these letters any peculiar vowel function, and that such 

punctuation determines the vowel they shall represent. 

***** 

The same alphabetical arrangement is common to all the lan- 
guages of India; such characters or such series only being drop- 
ped or simplified, as have ceased to be useful in each modernized 
idiom of tha't primeval tongue. 

" Collateral evidence may be likewise adduced," (of the 
common origin of the tongues of India), " from the peculiar 
arrangement of the Sanscrit alphabet, so different from that 
of any other part of the world. This extraordinary mode of 
combination still exists in the greater part of the East from 
the Indus to Pegu, in dialects now apparently unconnected, 
and. in characters completely dissimilar, but is a forcible ar- 
gument that they are all derived from one source." 

Preface to Wilkins's Sanscrit Diet. 



Ill 



ous task of delineating for the first time each ob- 
ject that would else have required a new gra- 
phical expression, those familiar and abridged fi- 
gures were united, whose monosyllabic names 
formed by their combination the intended poly- 
syllable, or where the word that called the first 
time for expression was itself monosyllabical, 
those whose radical or accentuated sounds formed 
together its enunciation; and henceforward the 
literal expression of polysyllables was attended 
with no more difficulty than that of the simplest 
sounds. A perfect representation, or one suf- 
ficiently accurate of each new object of com- 
munication, to exclude the possibility of mistake, 



That this arrangement has not been adopted in all those 
tongues which have successively borrowed from each other, 
the alphabetic forms of the Sanscrit, will not appear singular, 
when the rationale of their construction is considered. Each 
nation perceiving that it presented to their own language, the 
same means of correspondence and record, of course selected 
such characters only as served and sufficed to express its own 
sounds, and neglected the others. For it is to be kept in mind, 
that the choice of letters is not, like that of words, an act merely 
imitative, but implies the exercise of reason, and a state of so- 
ciety comparatively advanced in civilization : they were pre- 
sented for adoption, in a purely abstract and literal form, unen- 
cumbered by any remains of graphical resemblance ; while the 
original invention left them in possession of a transitive mean- 
ing and a hybrid character, as something between forms and 
letters. 



112 



was extremely difficult and tedious, and often 
impossible ; but to combine for that purpose the 
outlines of other forms, which fyabit and conven- 
tion had rendered familiar, and practice had re- 
duced to a few faint strokes, that already wore an 
alphabetic appearance, was a mode of intercourse 
attended with so many advantages, as formed the 
surest guaranty for its further improvement and 
simplification. Thus letters were to pictures, 
what speech is to sound : and alphabetical lan- 
guage was formed out of graphic imitations in the 
most perfectly inverse analogy to the construction 
of speech out of oral ones. 

Although there is every inductive reason to be- 
lieve that the whole globe was peopled from the 
progeny of one race, yet the variety of tongues into 
which its population has been subdivided might 
seem to militate against this opinion. But such 
contrasted forms of language were an evident and 
necessary result of those circumstances, under 
which the successive colonization of its surface was 
affected. At whatever period it may be thought 
proper to determine the origin of the human race, 
many generations must have elapsed before their 
speech had extended beyond the denomination of 
a few familiar objects, and the expression of a 
few urgent wants. In this interval, the vast in- 
crease of an indolent and devouring population, 



113 



compelled its numbers gradually to recede from 
each other in quest of food ; and contact being 
shunned as the evil they dreaded beyond all 
others, as the synonime, in short, of famine itself, 
all further intercourse ceased between the re- 
spective tribes. Thus the distinct masses of so- 
ciety were abandoned each one to the insulated 
construction of its own speech. The astonishing 
coincidence in almost all languages, of certain 
words of universal necessity, as terms of consan- 
guinity, pronouns, and above all, the lower nume- 
rals,* contrasted with the endless variety of term, 

* The three or four first numbers, and most of the others, are 
similar in almost every language of the old world. 

Sanscrit. Hind. Greek. Latin. Russian. Saxon. Celtic. Pers. Samarit. Ethiop. 

1 ek ek en un - us odene ein heen yak achad ahhad 

2 dwi dooa duo duo dwa zwo dho do shenem kylie 
3tri tree treis ties tie drei tree sen sheleis sylys 

4 chatur chutor tessares quatuor quetiere vier kaer chahar arbegnac aribay 

5 panchan panch pente quinque paete funf cuig panii chamoesh khiymn 



6 shash 


shish 


ex 


sex 


teste 


sechs shea shash 


shesh 


sydy 


7 saptan 


sat 


epta 


septem 


sedme 


sieben chagt haft 




saby 


8 ashtan 


husht 


octa 


octo 


osmi 


acht oght hasht 


sheman 


symin 


9 nasan 


nonoa 


ennea 


novem 


dewate 


neun nei nuh 


teshan 


tysy 


10 desan 


dish 


deka 


decern 


desate 


zeyn dech dah 


gneser 


ashra 



The only absolute exceptions to this similitude among the pri- 
mary numbers are the Chinese, and Malayan. It is well known 
that the first of these races has cherished up to the present hour 
an hereditary abhorrence against all affiliation of strangers, and 
the introduction of all foreign letters ; and the latter people 



114 



accent, and construction in the more artificial 
parts of speech, establishes this opinion beyond 
the reach of doubt. 

Each insulated groupe of mankind, being thus 
left to form its own tongue, it is sufficient to con- 
template their different wants, and the different 
modes, and means of supplying them, the variety 
of objects which caught their several attention 
and provoked their imitative oral powers, the 
grand phases of nature, and phenomena of climate, 
its influence on their respective habits of life, and 
the operation of all these causes on their organs, 
to account without a miracle for the innumerable 
varieties of language. The contrasted mode of 
existence peculiar to each horde, the spontaneous 
abundance a fruitful soil teemed forth for the 
luxurious indolence of life, or the calls of its steri- 
lity to incessant toil, a state of perpetual leisure or 



were precluded by their insulated position from any intercourse, 
till a comparatively recent period, with the rest of the world. 

The forms of the decimal cyphers, in all languages, where 
arithmetical signs are used for notation, are Sanscrit, with slight 
alterations, from the characters of ancient and modern India, 
down to those of an English compting-house. It will perhaps on 
inspecting their forms in that language, not be thought an un- 
founded conjecture, that they had their origin in an imitation 
of the different positions of the fingers employed for their suc- 
cessive enumeration. 



115 



of constaht exertion, imprinted its respective cha- 
racter, as well on. their tongue, as on their man- 
ners. And when the dispersed tribes, by an in- 
crease of population spread again into contact, 
their intermixture anew, added to the countless 
variety of dialect we have to contemplate. 

But the difficulty just anticipated does not ap- 
ply to the construction of alphabetic language, 
which derives its origin, under all its modifications, 
from one common source. The forms of every 
known alphabet may, by an attentive collation, be 
retraced into those of the Sanscrit, the, venerable 
parent of all literal language,* and, there is some 
reason to believe, the cradle of speech itself. 

All the alphabets' of the Western world derive 
their forms from the Asiatic, African, and Indian j* 



* The Orientals have through all antiquity, cherished the 
same opinion, calling it the Deva Nagaree, or writing of the 
immortals. 

t The characters of both ancient and modern Europe, are 
chiefly derived from the Greek; the Roman, Russian, Gothic, 
Teutonic, and Western alphabets, being all modifications of its 
forms both in their ordinary and capital letters. 

The aspirated H of modern tongues is in value, as well as in 
form, the same letter with the (Eta) of the Greek alphabet. 

The small (rj) and the German written (e) are the (f) reversed. 

The capital theta is adopted under nearly the same form into 



116 
ones, not any of the former being borrowed entirely 

the Russian language. The small theta ($) is the German writ- 
ten (d) both capital and small. 

The Roman L is the ancient Greek one reversed ; that of the 
other ancient European languages, is the more modern Greek 
one. 

The F of western Europe is evidently the digamma of the 
Greeks. 

The small sigma is in both its forms (<* and c) the same with 
the written German. 

The Greek u psilon is the same sound, as well as form, with 
the German (u) or ue diphthong, (for which we substitute in 
English (y) ) as in Psiiche, Piiramis, and in the German words 
mussen, ubvr, (yirtp,)* et cetera. 

* A strange confusion has taken place in the theory of the 
English vowels, from the want of a due attention to the under- 
stood diphthongs, which our tongue has derived from its Saxon 
foster-parent, or rather perhaps from a contemptuous ignorance 
till a very recent period, of that mother idiom, on the part of 
English grammarians. The pronunciation of the first vowel 
(a) as taught in different parts of this island, is that of so many 
different letters. And yet all these sounds belong to the same 
letter In English as well as in German. 

Thus the open (a) has its short sound in abandon, as in the 
German corresponding word verlassen, and its prolonged one in 
both languages, as in bar, wall, sache, strass. 

But in its acuter sounds capable, shameful, danger, it is an un- 
derstood diphthong, capable, shameful, danger, as in the Ger- 
man synonimes of the same words, fdhig, schdndlich, gefdhr, 
pronounced fahig, schandlich, gefahr. 

A want of unity of arrangement in our language has induced 



117 



from any one of the last, but partaking in different 
proportions of them all. 



The modern Roman and German (w) are the Greek Omega, 
or double o, as well in sound as in the written figure ; and the 



in many instances a change of vowel to express the plural, 
where, in the tongue they where borrowed from, the diphthong 
of the singular sufficed as well. 

Thus : man men older elders 

are expressed 

by mann manner alter altern. 

The open sounds of the (u) as in the words abundant, useful^ 
are found in the German, in luft, zufall. But it also expresses 
by the diphthong u (i. e. ue) the true sound of the Greek upsi- 
lon in the words iiblich, gluhend, &c. instead of which we have 
adopted the useless supernumerary (y), which has no place ei- 
ther in the Greek, or in the language that our own is derived 
from. 

This supercilious neglect of the true sources of the English 
tongue, has led grammarians into errors as ridiculous as they 
are unpardonable. Thus the eminent Dr. Johnson has no 
better genealogy to furnish for " day's bright harbinger/' than 
m deriving it from the low-dutch word herberger, which means 
the landlord of a mean paltry inn or lodging-house, herberg ; a 
pretty evident corruption of the French auberge, or the Italian 
albergo. Had Dr. Johnson instead of casting about at random, 
applied to any child who possessed the slightest tincture of 
German letters, he would have found him this picturesque term 
in the German or Saxon noun herbringer, " a bringer for- 
wards," " a leader on/' an introducer," or, as Milton meant it, 
" a herald." 



118 



Of these more primary ones, it remains there- 
fore to determine the seniority. 

Russian B (pw or oo aspirated) is the same letter placed in a 
different direction. 

But other letters in these western languages are wholly dif- 
ferent from those of the Greek alphabet, and bespeak a deri- 
vation more immediately oriental. 

The D of the European alphabets has no resemblance to the 
Greek delta, but is the same with the Arabic, Coptic, and 
Phoenician form. 

The Russian, Gothic and Teutonic (h) is exactly the Coptic 
one. 

The P of all the Western-European alphabets save the 
Gothic, is a form that pervades every oriental one, from the 
Sanscrit downwards, and has not the slightest resemblance to 
the same letter in Greek. 

The Teutonic letters (e, f and k) are immediately oriental. 

The Runic alphabet forms a very peculiar exception to the 
other European ones, its characters being immediately Phoeni- 
cian, Coptic or Egyptian ; a fact which affords a strong testi- 
mony in favour of the contested opinion that the Phoenicians ex- 
tended their navigation to the extreme points of this hemi- 
sphere, and along with their commerce, interchanged the arts 
and knowledge of the eastern and northern world. 

The structure of a great part of the Russian alphabet indi- 
cates an early intercourse with the primeval language of the 
East. The Russian 5I> E> JK> M» $> are immediate Sans- 
crit forms not transmitted through the medium of any interven- 
ing character ; the B (or Russian w) is the Bengalese V ; J|J 
and XT are Phoenician ; HI is Coptic, and 3 pervades all the 
oriental systems. 

In retracing to its sources the characters of the early Greek 
alphabet, the vowels are found to be Phoenician, save the 



119 



To give due effect to this inquiry, it will be 
requisite to lay down some certain principles, 

o mega, which is borrowed directly from Eastern India, and the 
u psilon, only found in the Bengalee and Sanscrit forms. 

The (g, 1, m, n, p, r, t), are Phoenician characters, with little 
or no alteration. 

The ancient Greek b, is immediately Bengalese, with little re^ 
semblance to any other. 

The Delta was Egyptian or Hebrew. 

The ancient k was exclusively an Egyptian form. 

The earliest sigma resembles the same letter on Hebraic me- 
dals. 

Proceeding to the compound letters subsequently introduced 
as well as to the more modern forms of the original ones, the 
(g, d, and z) are still Phoenician ; the (b, k, n, $, and p) are 
Coptic characters ; the small (e) is Sanscrit and Samaritan ; 
while the (»/) is the Grandan vowel ; is the oriental (t-h) ; A 
is the ancient Hebrew form, H is immediately Thibetian. The 
compound $ is directly and exclusively adopted from the San- 
scrit ; while its kindred digamma j[ is the Samaritan (b) con- 
verted by a transition of sound, of which language offers nucie^ 
rous examples (*) into the softer ones of bf t pf, or/. 

*The sound of the Sanscrit (w) becomes that of (b) in modern 
Bengalee. The Hebrew (beth) appears also to be pronounced 
indifferently (b) or (w). The Ionic Greek dialect substitutes 
(p) for ((f). The Russian (w) is the Greek B in form, by which 
a softer sound, intermediate between the (f) and (w) has been 
expressed. In certain parts of Spain the same confusion takes 
place. The transition from the German (b) into the low Dutch 
(v) is so uniform, that most of the words in which the former 
letter is found, may be mechanically transposed from one dia- 



120 
which arise out of the nature of alphabetic cha- 

The erect I is Thibetian, as is the r ; the C and <r are Egyp- 
tian forms. 

(X) and x are immediately Sanscrit. 

Finally, the i// appears to be a compound form, which origi- 
nated with the Greeks themselves. 

A careful inquiry into the derivation of the Arabic charac- 
ters will show : 

That the a is the same figure with the Coptic i, and the e of 
Thibet ; 

The ij is the Sanscrit ee ; 

One form of the i is Bengalee, the other is, Tamulian. The 
o is wanting. 

The u is Sanscrit and Bengalee ; and the nasal y Bengalee 
and Tamulian or Malabaric. 

Of the Arabic consonants, b, c, /, p, s, z, and t t are the cha- 
racters of the eastern peninsula of India; k, g> d, the linear m, 
n> and z are clearly of African derlvation,the upright m, and one 
form of t alone, are more immediately Sanscrit, while the g only 
is borrowed from the older Hebrew, and v, h, r,and z from its 
more modern forms. 



lect to the other, by substituting (v) in its place, as leben into 
leeven, geben geeven, belieben believen. 

The sound of this digamma was probably the compound of p 
and/, as Y is the diphthong of p and s. This diphthong- 
consonant, the German language has borrowed in numerous 
words, as pferd, pfeil, pfeffer, most of which, in the translation 
from German into Belgic, become reduced into p, or r simple, 
as paerd, peile, pepper; while others have undergone the whole 
mutation in] their original dialect, as Trartjp into pfater, and 
thence into Fater Germ. Vader Belgic. 



121 



racter, considered in itself, without reference to 
any external evidence. 

First. When the characters of a written lan- 
guage appear to have been changed or simplified, 
it is from their earliest forms that we must seek 
to retrace their origin. 

Second. As the successive changes in each 
respective alphabet, consist in gradual simplifica- 
tions of its forms ; in like manner, the progress of 
all alphabetic character is from more complex 
systems to others less so. And the universality 
of this fact offers the principal clue, by which to 
remount to the source, whence all written lan- 
guage is derived. For being in its essence a ste- 
nographic art, it is not more in reason than in 
evidence, that any useless and retarding additions 
should be grafted upon its once acknowledged 
forms. Simplification and rapidity are at the 
same time the only end and only means of its 
improvement. 

Third. That the language, all whose characters 
ftre to be found, more or less simplified, in other 
alphabets, and that without reciprocity, may with 
reason be considered the common mother of them 
all. For the adoption of alphabetic writing, un* 
like its first invention, was a simultaneous ope- 



124 



1st. That modern or angular Hebrew has been, 
reformed from the more ancient Chaldean cha* 
racter, as Bengalee from the Sanscrit. „ 

2d. The Phoenician, Coptic and Egyptian al- 
phabets are all of them immediate simplifications 
from the Sanscrit, except in a few instances, where 
their forms are borrowed from those of Oriental 
India. 

3d. The Chaldean, Samaritain and ancient 
Hebrew characters are in general still farther 
simplifications of the African forms, while a few 
of them are borrowed from those of eastern 
India. The modern Hebrew appears to have 
supplied itself, from the same source, with such 
letters as the twelve characters of the ancient 
Chaldean alphabet did not afford. 

The Tamulian, Grandan, and the several alpha- 
bets of that part of India situated eastward of the 
Ganges, are all descended from the Sanscrit, 
simplified, rounded off, and converted into a run- 



An attention to these remarks will greatly assimilate the forms 
of the different oriental characters* 



tempt being made to decipher some unknown linear fragment, 
when under an inverted position. 



125 



ning hand more susceptible of delineation by one 
rapid stroke of the pen or style.* 

It is therefore unreasonable to suppose, that 
the more composite and texual Sanscrit should 
have been borrowed from the rude imitative forms 
of the alphabets of Africa or western Asia. 

A reference to the plate, which accompanies this 
Essay, will demonstrate more clearly than words 
could shew, that the Sanscrit character alone ap- 
plies affirmatively to the conditions of originality 
that have been here laid down. We behold in it 
a language avowed to be aboriginal, all whose 
rather complex forms are traced through other 
alphabets, most of them with little alteration, ex- 
cept such marks of alineation as are common to 
a whole system, or else such inversions of form as 
are requisite in order to adapt them to the gene- 
ral direction of each respective hand- writing. In 
other instances, indeed, they are simplified by 
the suppression of unessential traits, or altered by 
the addition of general superfixed marks, that 



* The very few oriental characters which seem anomalous to 
the Sanscrit, are to be found in the alphabets of those countries 
only, whose more immediate vicinity to China, renders it highly 
probable they are corruptions of symphonical hieroglyphic 
forms. 



124 



1st. That modern or angular Hebrew has been 
reformed from the more ancient Chaldean cha- 
racter, as Bengalee from the Sanscrit. „ 

2d. The Phoenician, Coptic and Egyptian al- 
phabets are all of them immediate simplifications 
from the Sanscrit, except in a few instances, where 
their forms are borrowed from those of Oriental 
India. 

3d. The Chaldean, Samaritain and ancient 
Hebrew characters are in general still farther 
simplifications of the African forms, while a few 
of them are borrowed from those of eastern 
India. The modern Hebrew appears to have 
supplied itself, from the same source, with such 
letters as the twelve characters of the ancient 
Chaldean alphabet did not afford. 

The Tamulian, Grandan, and the several alpha- 
bets of that part of India situated eastward of the 
Ganges, are all descended from the Sanscrit, 
simplified, rounded off, and converted into a run- 



An attention to these remarks will greatly assimilate the forms 
of the different oriental characters. 



tempt being made to decipher some unknown linear fragment, 
*hen under an inverted position. 



125 



ning hand more susceptible of delineation by one 
rapid stroke of the pen or style.* 

It is therefore unreasonable to suppose, that 
the more composite and texual Sanscrit should 
have been borrowed from the rude imitative forms 
of the alphabets of Africa or western Asia. 

A reference to the plate, which accompanies this 
Essay, will demonstrate more clearly than words 
could shew, that the Sanscrit character alone ap- 
plies affirmatively to the conditions of originality 
that have been here laid down. We behold in it 
a language avowed to be aboriginal, all whose 
rather complex forms are traced through other 
alphabets, most of them with little alteration, ex- 
cept such marks of alineation as are common to 
a whole system, or else such inversions of form as 
are requisite in order to adapt them to the gene- 
ral direction of each respective hand- writing. In 
other instances, indeed, they are simplified by 
the suppression of unessential traits, or altered by 
the addition of general superfixed marks, that 



* The very few oriental characters which seem anomalous to 
the Sanscrit, are to be found in the alphabets of those countries 
only, whose more immediate vicinity to China, renders it highly 
probable they are corruptions of symphonical hieroglyphic 
forms. 



126 



seem destined to announce their literal quality, 
and at first sight disguise the similitude ; but 
through which a moment's attention- will re- 
cognize the absolute identity of their characteriz- 
ing forms. 

Its chirographic habit is maintained through the 
whole series, uniform and appropriate. Not one 
discordant form appears, which might be sup- 
posed to have been interpolated from a stranger 
system ; while every other alphabet under consi- 
deration contains a mixture of unassorted forms, 
manifestly borrowed from different sorts of let- 
ters ; or, though a common derivation from the 
Sanscrit may in all instances be retraced, it has 
evidently descended through the most distant 
channels.* 

Until that period arrived, when the introduction 

* This patriarchal character of the Sanscrit alphabet is 
alone sufficient, independently of the mass of more direct evi- 
dence, which a recently obtained acquaintance with that lan- 
guage has elicited, to induce a belief that through it were handed 
down those traditions, which under various modifications are 
common to all the languages of antiquity. At what period, and 
whence the traditions were obtained, it is impossible now to 
devise. In the absence of all data it is allowable to suppose 
they may have been antediluvian; and if so, it is in the Sans- 
crit that we possess both the characters and traditions of one 
generation of a fojmer world. 



127 



of letters amongst a people placed its annals and 
its knowledge beyopd the power of oblivion, bards 
and troubadours were the only historians. They 
were at once recorders of all the fasts and tri- 
umphs a nation had to commemorate, and sole 
depositaries of all the science it was thought worth 
while to preserve. Thus surrounded by the ve- 
neration of their contemporaries, and command- 
ing the reverent attention of nations, they em- 
ployed the arbitrary dominion they were allowed 
to exercise over the reigns of speech and song, 
in improving the laconism and energy of the. ir na- 
tive idioms. They had for hearers an ignorant 
and wonder-loving multitude, of violent but con- 
tracted feelings, rather a thirst after astonishment 
than instruction, and eager to find that interest in 
the charms of superior modulation and more im- 
pressive recital, which the realities they knew 
were not capable of awaking; while the exer- 
cise of the memorial faculty, alike paramount 
with both speaker and hearers, left little room for 
any other energy of the mind. 

Discrimination is the first effort of intellect. 
Men learn to distinguish before they learn to 
class ; and the powers of generalization lying 
long dormant, not only each species, but al- 
most every individual of it, would at first claim 
for itself a separate denomination. At the same 



128 



time the unpractised understanding of a savage 
requires words to recall his ideas, as children and 
unlettered persons are obliged to read aloud, that 
their own tongue may supply the sounds, for 
which ocular signs are with them too sluggish 
a substitute. On that account, where written me- 
morial was wanting frequent oral repetition be- 
came necessary, and hence for purposes of rapi- 
dity and laconism, abbreviations were indispen- 
sable. Compound words were formed by the 
union of names with epithets ; the noun was wed- 
ded to the preposition which directed it, the pro- 
noun to its verb ; and the facility of transposition 
this means afforded, giving full scope to metrical 
expression multiplied the graces of oratory and 
the charms of rhyth, thus dividing the hearer's at- 
tention between the subject and the song, till he 
lost all ardour for the investigation of fact, en- 
tranced in the charms of relation. 

The introduction of letters into common use 
extended this taste, by imparting it to those clas- 
ses of society, whom absence or severer avoca- 
tions prevented from attending on these recitals. 
It also gratified curiosity with an insight into the 
literature of other countries, while it served' to 
multiply and perpetuate their own. Colloquial 
dialects gradually adopted the inflections, and imi- 
tated the transpositive style they listened to, and 



129 



the language of its orators became that of a w hole- 
people. 

In the mild climates of the East,, the indolence 
of pastoral life afforded ample leisure for the 
study of poetic lore ; nor did the more assiduous 
occupations of the spade and loom preclude from 
sharing the same gratification. Northern nations 
on the other hand, proceeded without any interval 
of pastoral leisure, from predatory to toilsome and 
industrious pursuits. A race of men inhabiting 
an iron clime, with appetites whetted by priva- 
tion, and indifferent to fatigue or danger when 
immediate gratification promises to be their 
reward, is too impatient to wait the tardy returns 
of agricultural improvement from a sterile soil, 
still less to content themselves with the scanty 
boon of recompense that pastoral vigilance obtains. 
Need and convenience are their first stimulants, 
and what robbery and warfare cannot procure, 
they must learn to create. Urgent want is with 
them the mother of arts, and the first fruit of 
their leisure is exact science. Hence in general 
the nations that inhabit warm climates, are found 
to be gifted with dispositions imaginative and li- 
terary, while those of regions less favoured by 
nature, are more tenaciously scientific ; and the 
arrival of letters has overtaken their languages 
in a less advanced stage of flexibility. 



130 



la this state, the literary language of every 

country has continued thenceforward to maintain 

itself till that period, when a horde, of invaders 

from icy regions and of barbarous idiom, have 

poured down on it with the resistless force of a 

deluge, carrying desolation in its suite. Though 

the doom which usually awaited the victims of 

such conquest was the overthrow of families, the 

extinction of dynasties, and the destruction of all 

existing institutions, their kings their laws and 

their idols being promiscuously swept away ; yet 

when the chaos subsided into form, it has ever 

been found that the invaders borrowed more from 

the language of the country they had ravaged, 

than they lent it in return, and a mixed jargon has 

always been formed, of which the mother idiom 

still remained by far the predominating element. 

In this manner the Sanscrit became Eengalese, 

the Arab Turkish, the Latin Italian and French, 

the Celtic Anglo-Saxon, and the Anglo-Saxon 

English. 

i 

When the primary language of a country be- 
comes corrupted by intermixture with some 
stranger idiom, whether through sudden invasion 
or gradual intercourse, still a written standard 
serves to delay and to palliate the change, inas- 
much as it lends itself reluctantly and slowly to 
the deteriorations of living speech ; for there is no 



131 



doubt that in every original* language the same 
sounds which were uttered, are written, and that 
each accent was exactly rendered by its appro- 
priate orthography. In mixed and corrupted 
tongues also, the changes of oral accent and in- 
flection, precede by a long interval any correspon- 
dent change in the written orthography or ac- 
knowledged analogies of its grammar. The spo- 
ken Greek had degenerated into Eolo-doric, long 
before that modern dialect was constituted into a 
tongue under recognized grammatical forms. In 
like manner the oral changes from Latin into 
Italian, from Norman and Provencal into modern 
French, and from Anglo-Saxon into English, an- 
ticipated by ages any grammatical authority for 
such innovation, which seems to have been con- 
ceded as it were with sullen and reluctant dig- 
nity. And hence, the greatest differences and 
most numerous anomalies between the language 
as written and as spoken, are found in tongues 
avowedly derivative and mixed. 

The question therefore so often agitated, whe- 
ther it be not more philosophical as well as con- 
venient, to reduce all written orthographies into 
exact unison with the oral tongues, resolves itself 

* That is, every language whose grammatical forms are an- 
terior to its use of letters. 



132 



into another much more easy to be answered. 
For were a fixed consecrated standard of lan^ 
guage to bow compliantly to all the capricious in- 
novations in a tongue exposed to daily adulteration, 
it would very soon cease to be a determinate lan- 
guage ; and letters, instead of operating as a check 
on the evil, would so greatly facilitate its progress, 
that an existing age would require the help of 
grammar and dictionary to understand the re^ 
cords of its immediate grandfathers. 

The simplification of analogy in modern tongues, 
which has resulted from this violent intermixture, 
by tending to break the enchantment of mere lite- 
rature, has perhaps contributed in some degree to 
direct the mental energies of nations towards the 
analysis of facts and the attainment of real science. 
At least, if not the cause, it has been the conco- 
mitant of a habit of more accurate enquiry into 
philosophical truth. 

Though these changes of character in the lan- 
guage, and of direction in the scientific pursuits 
of every modern nation were coeval, it is not pre- 
tended that such simplification of tongue has im- 
printed any permaneut stamp on its future genius, 
in relation to works of imagination or pure litera- 
ture. The loftiest darings of poetic genius have 
in later ages most signalized those tongues, which 



133 



are generally thought the farthest removed from 
poetic pliability ; and, on the other hand, their own 
most illustrious writers concur in admitting, that 
the people whose language is, after the Italian, the 
most flexible of modern tongues, has thought pro- 
per to bind down under the severest trammels of 
rule and prescription the energies of her muse. 
This difference of literary character in an age like 
ours, when the whole treasury of past and present 
knowledge is alike open to all, must therefore be 
allowed to depend upon various external causes. 
In some instances, perhaps, ignorance of precedent 
is itself the mother of peculiar beauty and feeling. 
At all events, the lead which our native tongue, 
the least inflected dialect of the lettered world, 
has taken in science and in literature, the splen- 
did proofs it holds forth of its entire competency 
for the expression of every idea that feeling or 
science may wish to impart, at a period when all 
the efforts of intellect and imagination challenge 
its adequateness, and try its powers, is alone a- 
sufficient proof that language needs little of inflec- 
tion, to convey with rapidity every thought the hu- 
man mind is able to cherish or conceive. 



WE END. 



Howffltt t Printer, 49, Brewer Street. 



C 26 8 








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